You will have heard a great deal about the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The implementation date (25 May 2018) is just around the corner and Moorcrofts, like many law firms, has been hard at work advising our clients with the new changes in this regulation.

However, unlike many other law firms, we’ve been listening to the needs and concerns of our clients, and we realise that the old ‘letter of advice followed by directions to implementation’ approach doesn’t give many businesses, especially those with complex data protection issues, the service they need.

What they have been crying out for is a more hands-on approach where we take time to get to know their business, data, processes, and, most importantly, their business aims and culture in order to help them to map out their data stores and data flows, prepare their documentation, policies and procedures, help to implement the changes necessary to their physical and electronic systems, and train their staff to understand and implement those policies and procedures.

To do this, we’re establishing a new division of the firm, which will work hand-in-hand with our specialist data-protection lawyers, to provide the project management and compliance expertise so that we can provide a full end-to-end service. This means that we don’t only provide the legal advice but we provide the services necessary to deliver complete compliance. Our new compliance team can draw on skills in implementation, training, documentation, systems and assessment, either in-house, or by partnering with best-in-breed third party companies.

Many companies won’t need the end-to-end service, and will be able to handle the transition themselves with our guidance on the legal side, but for those who do need to outsource their GDPR compliance implementation, we’re here to help.