Website terms and conditions of use

What is in these terms?

These terms tell you the rules for using www.coic.org.uk.

Who we are and how to contact us

Our sites are operated by The Council of the Inns of Court, a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales under company number 8804708, registered charity number 1155640 and registered office of 9 Gray’s Inn Square, London WC1R 5JD.

To contact us please send us an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

By using any of our sites you accept these terms

By using any of our sites, you confirm that you accept these terms and that you agree to comply with them. If you do not agree to these terms, please do not use our sites.

We recommend that you print a copy of these terms for future reference.

These terms refer to our Privacy and Cookies Policy, which sets out the terms on which we process any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us and information about the cookies on our sites. By using any of our sites, you consent to such processing and you agree that all data provided by you is accurate.

We may make changes to these terms

We may amend these terms from time to time. Your continued use of the sites means you accept the terms as updated. Therefore, every time you wish to use one of our sites, please check these terms.

Availability of our sites

    1. We may update and change our sites from time to time to reflect our users’ needs and our business priorities.
    2. We do not guarantee that our sites, or any content on them, will always be available or be uninterrupted. We may suspend or withdraw or restrict the availability of all or any part of our sites for business and operational reasons. We will try to give you reasonable notice of any suspension or withdrawal.
    3. You are responsible for ensuring that all persons who access our sites through your internet connection are aware of these terms and conditions and other applicable terms, and that they comply with them.
    4. We will determine, in our sole discretion, whether there has been a breach of these terms. When a breach has occurred, we may take such action as we deem appropriate, including immediate, temporary or permanent withdrawal of your right to use any of our sites. You will be notified and must not then attempt to use the relevant sites under any other name or through any other user.

You must keep your account details safe

    • If you choose, or you are provided with, a password or any other piece of information as part of our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential. You must not disclose it to any third party.
    • We have the right to disable any password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time, if in our reasonable opinion you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of these terms.
    • If you know or suspect that anyone other than you knows your password, you must promptly notify us using the contact details above.

How you may use our sites

You may use our sites only for lawful purposes. You must not use our sites:

  1. in any way that breaches any applicable local, national or international law or regulation;
  2. in any way that is unlawful or fraudulent, or has any unlawful or fraudulent purpose or effect;
  3. in any way that could, in our reasonable opinion, harm our reputation or reputation of our partners;
  4. for the purpose of harming or attempting to harm minors in any way;
  5. to transmit, or procure the sending of, any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising or promotional material or any other form of similar solicitation (spam); or
  6. in any way that causes, or may cause, damage to the site or impairment of the availability or accessibility of the site; or
  7. for the purposes of any systematic or automated data collection activities (including without limitation scraping, data mining, data extraction and data harvesting) on or in relation to our website without our express written consent.

Content standards

  1. These standards apply to any and all material which you contribute to our site (contributions), which we expect will generally be provided to us by email.
  2. These standards apply to each part of any contribution as well as to its whole.
  3. Contributions must:
  1. be accurate (where they state facts);
  2. be genuinely held (where they state opinions); and
  3. comply with applicable law in the UK and in any country from which they are posted.
  • 4. Contributions must not:
  1. contain any material which is malicious, obscene, offensive, threatening, defamatory, harassing, false or misleading, hateful or inflammatory or is likely to bring us or our sites into disrepute;
  2. promote violence or sexually explicit material;
  3. promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age;
  4. infringe any copyright, database right or trade mark of any other person (unless you have the permission of the owner);
  5. be made in breach of any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence;
  6. be in breach of the data or privacy rights of any person or of our Privacy Policy;
  • 5. You agree that we have the right to determine whether any of your contributions are appropriate and comply with these terms, and that we are under no obligation to publish those contributions, and that we may remove any and/or all of your contributions, and terminate your account with or without notice and/or take any steps necessary to block your access to our sites.
  • 6. You hereby indemnify us and undertake to keep us indemnified against any losses, damages, costs, liabilities and expenses (including without limitation legal expenses and any amounts paid by us to a third party in settlement of a claim or dispute on the advice of our legal advisers) incurred or suffered by us arising out of any breach by you of any provision of these terms and conditions.
  • 7. If you wish to complain about contributions please contact us.

How you may use materials on our sites

    1. We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our sites, and in the material published on them. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.
    2. You may print off one copy, and may download extracts, of any page(s) from our sites for your personal use and you may draw the attention of others within your organisation to content posted on our sites. You must not attempt to circumvent these terms by sharing your password with others – any accounts you have for our sites are personal to you.
    3. You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.
    4. Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of content on our sites must always be acknowledged.
    5. You must not use any part of the content on our sites for commercial purposes without obtaining a licence to do so from us or our licensors.
    6. If you print off, copy or download any part of our sites in breach of these terms and conditions, your right to use our sites will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.

Job applications via our sites

  1. From time to time, our sites may include details of employment opportunities (“opportunities”) within COIC and its subsidiary organisations. Subject to any express requirements as stated in a particular opportunity, you may submit an application to us for consideration in respect of any one or more of these opportunities by post or email, by submitting your curriculum vitae and a cover letter.
  2. By submitting an application, you are indicating your acceptance to the following:
  1. the information provided in respect of an opportunity is not necessarily accurate;
  2. information such as submission deadlines and interview dates may change at our discretion and these changes may not be reflected on our sites;
  3. any personal information you provide to us will be processed in accordance with our Privacy Policy;
  4. we cannot guarantee the success of any application, nor that you will be shortlisted or interviewed. Each application is judged on merit according to the job specification and the details supplied to us by you;
  5. all applications are subject to equal opportunities monitoring and legislation in accordance with our Diversity and Equal Opportunities Policy;
  6. all applicants are encouraged to complete our Diversity and Equal Opportunities monitoring form. You can find a downloadable version of this form here.  This form is optional and is used for monitoring equality and diversity only.  For further information regarding how we will collect and use your personal information please refer to our Privacy Policy;
  7. please ensure you have read and understood the opportunity before submitting your application – it is your responsibility to ensure that your application shows how you meet the criteria required;
  8. you confirm that the information provided on your application is true, accurate and complete. If you provide inaccurate or misleading information or omissions then you may, if subsequently appointed to the role, be dismissed;
  9. you may be asked to provide proof of identity and evidence of qualifications;
  10. you agree to our making any necessary enquiries to verify the information provided in your application (including contacting referees – you must have satisfactory references);
  11. during the selection and recruitment process, you may be required to disclose unspent convictions prior to any appointment. In exceptional cases and where permitted by law (for example, where due to the nature of the role, the provisions of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (as amended) applies) you may also be required to disclose spent convictions.  Where disclosure may be required it will normally be made clear in the recruitment information for the role.

Do not rely on information on our sites

    1. The content on our sites is provided for general information only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our sites.
    2. Although we make reasonable efforts to update the information on our sites, we make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether express or implied, that the content on our sites is accurate, complete or up to date.
    3. We are a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties and users of the sites. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers, or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including information providers, or users, are those of the authors or distributors and not of us. We do not endorse nor are we responsible for the accuracy or reliability of any opinion, advice or statement made on any of our sites.

We are not responsible for websites we link to

    • Where our sites contain links to other websites and resources provided by third parties, these links are provided for your information only. Such links should not be interpreted as approval by us of those linked websites or information you may obtain from them. We have no control over the contents of those websites or resources.

Our responsibility for loss or damage suffered by you

Whether you are a consumer or a business user:

    1. We do not exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents or subcontractors and for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.

If you are a business user:

  1. We exclude all implied conditions, warranties, representations or other terms that may apply to our sites or any content on them.
  2. We will not be liable to you for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with:
  1. use of, or inability to use, any of our sites; or
  2. use of or reliance on any content displayed on our sites.

c. In particular, we will not be liable for:

  1. loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue;
  2. business interruption;
  3. loss of anticipated savings;
  4. loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation; or
  5. any indirect or consequential loss or damage.
  • If you are a consumer user:
  1. Please note that we only provide our sites for domestic and private use. You agree not to use our sites for any commercial or business purposes, and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.

We are not responsible for viruses and you must not introduce them

    1. We do not guarantee that our sites will be secure or free from bugs or viruses.
    2. You are responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform to access our sites. You should use your own virus protection software.
    3. You must not misuse our sites by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material that is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our sites, the server on which our sites are stored or any server, computer or database connected to our sites. You must not attack our sites via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our sites will cease immediately.

Assignment

    • We may transfer, sub-contract or otherwise deal with our rights and/or obligations under these terms without notifying you or obtaining your consent.
    • You may not transfer, sub-contract or otherwise deal with your rights and/or obligations under these terms.

If a court finds part of these terms illegal, the rest will continue in force

    • Each of the paragraphs of these terms operates separately. If any court or relevant authority decides that anyone or number of them are unlawful, the remaining paragraphs will remain in full force and effect.

Exclusion of third party rights

    • These terms are for the benefit of you and us, and are not intended to benefit any third party or be enforceable by any third party. The exercise of our and your rights in relation to these terms is not subject to the consent of any third party.

Trademarks, trade names and logos

    • “The Council of the Inns of Court”, “The Inns of Court College of Advocacy”, “The Advocate’s Gateway” and “The Bar Tribunals & Adjudication Service” along with their respective logos are UK registered trademarks of the Council of the Inns of Court. You are not permitted to use them unless you have our consent and have complied with our Brand Guidelines (a copy of which is available on request).