Legal Services
Legal Services supports the University in effectively identifying and managing legal risk.
Who are we?
Legal Services consists of three main teams: Legal Team, Insurance Office and Information Governance (Data Protection).
What do we do?
We are a trusted and valued partner, informing and enabling the University's core business and strategic objectives, in addition to acting as an independent and objective sounding board.
We provide timely, pragmatic risk and solution based advice to the University, aiming to prevent unlawful acts and omissions and enable the University to act lawfully and compliantly.
We monitor legal and regulatory changes, review policies, procedures and regulations and help to manage investigations, claims, litigation and insurance matters.
We can further support you by transferring our knowledge via guidance and training and providing you with access to toolkits and templates.
What type of support can I expect?
Sounding board
We can act as a sounding board with legal issues you might be facing by discussing what they are and what type of support you will need.
Routine advice
Providing initial advice and helping you assess whether more detailed legal input is required.
External support
Where your request for legal advice involves specialist expertise, we may procure external lawyers to secure appropriate advice.
How do I obtain support?
If you are contacting us for legal advice, please ensure you have the support of a senior member of your team who can authorise any costs and decisions which may need to be made.
We would normally expect that requests for legal advice from academic colleagues are directed through professional services teams in the first instance. We will then support the relevant professional services team to secure legal input.
You'll need to provide a brief description of the relevant issues and your timescales. You do not need to know exactly what type of legal support you require - we can help you work this out.
Personal legal enquiries
If you have a legal query that doesn't relate to your role at the University, for example, a housing or small business issue, we can't help you. However, the York Law School offer appointments with the Baroness Hale Legal Clinic where law students, supported by qualified lawyers, can assist you.
FAQs
You should contact Legal Services if you receive notification of a claim or dispute with the University. This might appear in the form of:
- a letter from a solicitor
- court documents
- a notification alleging that a third party might take action against the University
There may be deadlines against which the University needs to respond, so it is important that you forward on any communications you receive to legal
Only the Legal Team can instruct external lawyers or legal advisors.
With exception, where agreed in advance with Legal Services, some HR and Estates work may be outsourced directly.
Some subsidiaries may need to instruct their own legal advisors but should discuss with the Legal team. The exception, RKEC team who provide legal advice for research related contracts.
We're not able to offer advice to students. We recommend contacting the following teams:
Generally, we will prioritise advice requests which have cross-institutional impact or help manage financial or reputational risk at an institutional level.
We are a small team and, at some points, demand for our internal services may exceed our capacity especially if we are instructing on larger projects, in these cases we may refer you to external solicitors or direct you to guidance and support materials.
When we provide legal advice, we will always aim to ensure that we take a risk-based approach. We will make clear what the legal position is, but will explain what options you have to manage your legal risk in an effective way. There is not always a black-and-white legal answer.
Where we identify that a particular course of action will result in a significant legal risk for the University, we will make this clear. Difficult decisions are sometimes required around how the University both manages legal risk and achieves a specific outcome and, in these circumstances, we will work with you to escalate the issue to an appropriate decision-maker.
Any changes to University policies or regulations may have legal implications and risk.
To facilitate a speedy resolution of legal issues and reduce the legal risk to the University, please contact us at the earliest possible opportunity of any policy or regulation changes so we can deal with your query in an efficient and timely manner.
We are happy to take the lead.
Please feel free to contact us by emailing legal
Legal Services are not authorised to sign contracts on behalf of the University. The Contract Framework (PDF 
, 431kb) sets out who can sign university agreements.