Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

These terms, together with your firm's order form and the Data Processing Agreement (DPA) signed as part of onboarding, form the agreement between your firm and Candid, which is operated by Scribe Services Ltd. By creating an account or using Candid, your firm agrees to be bound by the agreement. The person accepting these terms on behalf of a firm confirms that they are authorised to bind that firm.

2. What Candid Does

Candid assembles Form E financial disclosure from documents your firm's clients upload, and checks the figures for consistency and gaps. Candid does not provide legal advice and does not make legal determinations of any kind. Every document Candid produces must be reviewed and approved by a qualified solicitor at your firm before it is finalised, exchanged, or relied upon in any way.

3. Eligibility

Candid is intended for use by SRA-regulated family law firms operating in England & Wales. Accounts are issued to firms, not individual consumers, and each user of a firm account must be an authorised member of that firm's staff.

4. Intellectual Property and Licence

Candid and its licensors own all intellectual property rights in the Candid software and service. Candid grants your firm a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and use the service during the term of the agreement, for your firm's own internal use in providing legal services to its clients.

Your firm and its clients keep all rights in the documents and data they upload and in the disclosure documents Candid produces for them. Your firm grants Candid a licence to host, copy, and process that content as needed to provide the service and as set out in the DPA. Candid may collect and use operational and performance data about how the service is used in order to maintain and improve it. Candid does not use client documents, or the personal data within them, to train AI models — see our Privacy Policy.

5. No Legal Advice

Candid is a document assembly and checking tool, not a substitute for legal judgment. Nothing produced by Candid constitutes legal advice, and Candid is not responsible for legal decisions made on the basis of its output. Your firm's solicitors remain solely responsible for the accuracy, completeness, and legal sufficiency of any disclosure document before it is submitted or exchanged.

6. Automated Processing and Accuracy

Candid uses automated processing, including AI models, to read uploaded documents and extract figures from them. This processing can contain errors, and Candid does not warrant that it will identify every inconsistency, gap, or mistake in the documents or figures your firm processes. Your firm must check every figure against its source document before a solicitor signs off the disclosure, and must not treat the sign-off step as a formality.

7. Client Data and Confidentiality

Your firm remains the data controller for all client information processed through Candid. Candid processes that data only as instructed and under the terms of your firm's DPA — see our Privacy Policy for how data is handled.

Each party will keep the other's confidential information confidential and use it only to perform the agreement. This does not apply to information that is or becomes public through no fault of the receiving party, that the receiving party already held or developed independently, or that a party is required to disclose by law or by a regulator. A party may share the other's confidential information with its professional advisers who are bound by a duty of confidence. This obligation continues after the agreement ends.

8. Accounts and Acceptable Use

Your firm is responsible for the security of its account credentials and for the actions of its authorised users. Candid may not be used to process data your firm is not lawfully entitled to collect, or in any way that violates applicable law or the rights of a client or third party.

9. Connected Third-Party Systems

At your firm's request, Candid can connect to a third-party system your firm uses — for example, a practice-management system — and transmit a signed-off Form E and its supporting documents into that system. Where your firm enables such a connection:

• Your firm authorises the connection and is responsible for its own account, access controls, and configuration within that system.
• Candid transmits data only on your firm's instruction and only to the destination your firm selects. Your firm confirms it is entitled to transfer that client data to that system.
• Candid is not responsible for the third-party system's availability, security, or handling of data once it has been delivered, nor for changes the third party makes to its service or interfaces, nor for loss or corruption of data caused by the third party or its interfaces.
• Your firm is responsible for checking that transmitted documents have been received and correctly filed in the third-party system.
• Your firm's use of the third-party system is governed by your firm's own agreement with that provider, not by these terms.
• Disconnecting an integration stops further transfers but does not recall or delete data already delivered.

10. Your Firm's Responsibilities and Indemnity

Your firm is and remains responsible for meeting its own regulatory and professional obligations, including its obligations to clients and to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Candid is a software provider. It is not a law firm, is not regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, and does not carry on reserved legal activities.

Your firm will indemnify Candid against losses, damages, costs, and reasonable expenses that Candid incurs as a result of a third-party claim — including a claim by a client of your firm or by a regulator — arising from:

• client data your firm uploaded, or instructed Candid to process, without the right to do so;
• your firm's failure to review and approve a document before it was finalised, exchanged, or relied upon; or
• your firm's instruction to transmit data to a connected third-party system.

This indemnity does not apply to the extent the claim arises from Candid's own breach of the agreement or its negligence. Candid will notify your firm promptly of any claim, will not settle it without your firm's consent (not to be unreasonably withheld), and will give your firm reasonable assistance and conduct of the defence at your firm's cost.

11. Fees

Fees for Candid are set out in your firm's order form or commercial agreement and are exclusive of VAT. Unless otherwise agreed, fees are billed in advance and are non-refundable except as required by law. Candid may charge interest on overdue amounts at the rate set by the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998.

12. Suspension

Candid may suspend your firm's access to the service, in whole or in part, where fees are overdue, where Candid reasonably believes the service is being used in breach of these terms or in a way that poses a security risk, or where Candid is required to do so by law. Where practicable, Candid will give notice before suspending and will restore access promptly once the cause is resolved. Suspension for non-payment or for your firm's breach does not relieve your firm of its obligation to pay fees for the suspended period.

13. Warranties and Disclaimers

Candid warrants that it will provide the service with reasonable care and skill. Except for that warranty and any express commitment in your firm's order form, and to the fullest extent permitted by law, Candid is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis with no further warranties, conditions, or representations, including any implied warranties of satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. Candid does not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted or error-free.

14. Liability

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits either party's liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited under the law of England & Wales.

Subject to that, neither party is liable to the other for loss of profits, revenue, business, or anticipated savings, or for any indirect or consequential loss, whether arising in contract, tort (including negligence), or otherwise.

Subject to the first paragraph, Candid's total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with the agreement is limited to the total fees paid by your firm for the service in the twelve months immediately before the event giving rise to the claim.

A separate limit applies to liability arising from a breach by Candid of its data protection obligations under the DPA or applicable data protection law, or from a personal data breach caused by Candid. That liability is limited to the amount stated for this purpose in your firm's order form, or, if no amount is stated, to twice the total fees paid by your firm for the service in the twelve months immediately before the event giving rise to the claim. This separate limit does not cover your firm's own liability, as data controller, for the instructions it gives or the way it uses the service, and nothing in these terms limits a data subject's statutory rights to compensation.

The limits in this section do not apply to your firm's obligation to pay fees or to your firm's indemnity obligations under these terms. Candid maintains professional indemnity and cyber liability insurance appropriate to the nature and scale of the service, and each party will take reasonable steps to mitigate its losses.

15. Term and Termination

Either party may terminate the agreement in accordance with the notice period set out in your firm's order form, or immediately on written notice if the other party commits a material breach that, if capable of remedy, is not remedied within 30 days of being notified of it. Either party may also terminate immediately on written notice if the other stops or threatens to stop carrying on business, is unable to pay its debts as they fall due, or becomes subject to an insolvency procedure.

On termination, your firm's right to use the service ends and it must stop using it. Candid will make your firm's case data available for export in a commonly used format for 30 days, after which it will be deleted in line with the DPA unless a longer period is required by law. Termination does not affect any right or liability that accrued before it took effect.

16. General

Neither party is liable for any delay or failure to perform caused by events beyond its reasonable control, provided it takes reasonable steps to resume performance; if such an event continues for more than 60 days, either party may terminate the agreement on written notice. Your firm may not assign or transfer its rights under the agreement without Candid's prior written consent; Candid may assign the agreement to a successor to its business.

The agreement is the entire agreement between the parties on its subject matter and replaces any earlier discussion or understanding. Neither party has relied on any statement not set out in the agreement, but nothing limits liability for fraud. The agreement does not give any person who is not a party to it any right to enforce its terms, and the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 is excluded. In particular, a client of your firm who interacts with Candid — for example, to upload documents or to review and sign a financial statement — acquires no rights under these terms; their relationship remains with your firm.

No delay in enforcing a right is a waiver of it, and a waiver must be in writing. If any provision is found to be unenforceable, the rest of the agreement continues in force. The provisions on intellectual property, confidentiality, data protection, liability, indemnities, and this section survive termination. Except for changes Candid makes under section 18, any variation to the agreement must be agreed in writing by both parties. Notices under the agreement must be given in writing — to Candid at support@candidlegal.co.uk, and to your firm at the account holder's email address.

17. Governing Law

These terms are governed by the laws of England & Wales, and the courts of England & Wales have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising from them.

18. Changes to These Terms

Candid may update these terms from time to time and will notify your firm's account holder of any material change before it takes effect. If your firm does not agree to a material change, it may terminate the agreement before the change takes effect by notifying Candid; continued use of the service after that point is acceptance of the updated terms. Commercial terms in your firm's order form can be changed only by written agreement between the parties.

19. Contact

Questions about these terms can be sent to support@candidlegal.co.uk.