Code of Conduct

Version 1.0 · Effective from Monday 31 August 2026

Version. 1.0

Effective from. Monday 31 August 2026

Review. Annually.

Published at. bonsai.law/circle/conduct

1. Purpose

The Circle only works if members can rely on each other to behave well in the room, on the forum, and in the one-to-one contact that follows a Circle introduction. This code says what "behave well" means, in language grown-ups can act on.

It sits alongside the Terms of Membership, the Confidentiality Regime, the Vetting Standard, and the Safeguarding Policy. It does not replace your own professional or employer obligations, which continue in full.

2. How you treat other members

Show up prepared. If you have a referral, come with it usable. If you have a problem, come with it framed.
Give real help. If you say you will make an introduction, you will do it, in a reasonable time, in a way that reflects well on all three of you.
Take real help well. If a member helps you, acknowledge it. If it did not work out, say so, briefly, without blame.
Keep your commitments. Meetings, follow-ups, promised information. If circumstances change, say so promptly.
Respect the room. No cross-talk while a problem is being discussed. No phones out. No interrupting.
Respect the person. No discriminatory or demeaning behaviour, direct or "banter". Behaviour contrary to the Equality Act 2010 is a removal matter.

3. How you use referrals

Members are introduced as vetted professional peers, not as certified. Your own professional judgement continues to apply.
Members do not receive commission from us for referrals.
Do not accept commissions from other members for a referral you make, unless the arrangement is disclosed to the person being referred and to the founders in advance and is compliant with your own professional rules.
Do not use the Circle to hunt clients away from another member's practice.
Do not use a referral from a member as a warm lead for a follow-up sales pitch unrelated to the referred matter.

4. How you use the confidentiality regime

Set out in full in the Confidentiality Regime. In short:

Chatham House applies. Say nothing outside the Circle that identifies who said what inside it.
No recording. No screenshots. No off-platform Circle groups.
Your own professional confidentiality obligations always continue.
Breach carries a strong presumption of removal, applied through the Complaints, Concerns and Removal Procedure with the ordinary right of appeal.

5. How you use the forum

Set out in full in the Forum Rules and Acceptable Use. In short:

Post as your real self, from your own account.
Do not post anything you would not want a regulator to read.
Do not use the forum to conduct regulated activity (advice, arranging deals, dealing as principal, etc) unless you are authorised to and it is compliant with your own regulator's rules.
Do not post client-identifying information without express client consent.
Do not use the forum to advertise or spam.

5A. Bonsai Law staff participation

Bonsai Law staff (the founders, solicitors, paralegals, trainees, business-support staff and other employees of Bonsai Law Ltd) may promote the Circle, join Circle meetings, post on the Circle forum, send direct messages to members, and engage with the Circle in the same way as members. Their engagement is welcome and expected.

When Bonsai Law staff engage with the Circle they are not acting as your legal adviser.

Nothing a member of Bonsai Law staff says or writes in a Circle capacity is legal advice, whether the content concerns legal matters or not.
No solicitor-client relationship with Bonsai Law Ltd is created by a comment, a direct message, a meeting exchange, a social-media post promoting the Circle, or any other Circle-related communication.
A retainer with Bonsai Law Ltd is created only by instructing the firm at bonsai.law and receiving the firm's written engagement terms. Nothing else creates a retainer.

Bonsai Law staff who post on the Circle forum or in direct messages will, where the content could be mistaken for advice, add a short note in their own words to the effect that the comment is a personal or general observation and not legal advice from the firm. Members should not read the absence of that note in any given post as an implication that the reverse is true. The default position is set out in Terms of Membership clause 2.2 and this section: no Circle communication is legal advice.

When Bonsai Law staff promote the Circle outside the platform - on LinkedIn, in emails, at events, in professional publications - they:

describe the Circle in terms consistent with the published Circle materials at bonsai.law/circle;
do not describe the Circle as a legal service, a legal-advice service or a substitute for one;
do not offer legal opinions on specific facts to prospective members in the course of promoting the Circle;
direct anyone who asks a legal question in the course of a Circle promotion to bonsai.law for a proper instruction.

Where a Circle discussion touches a matter Bonsai Law is instructed on, or has been instructed on, or might be instructed on:

the Bonsai Law staff member concerned discloses the connection to the founders and steps back from the Circle discussion of that matter;
the ordinary conflict rules in section 9 of this code apply, as they do to any other member with a professional connection to a Circle discussion.

This section binds Bonsai Law staff to the Circle regime as much as it binds any member. A Bonsai Law staff member who breaches the confidentiality regime, the Code of Conduct or the Forum Rules and Acceptable Use is dealt with under the Complaints, Concerns and Removal Procedure in the same way as any other member. In addition, an internal Bonsai Law disciplinary route may apply, per the firm's staff terms.

6. How you handle one-to-one contact from a Circle introduction

Default to a professional venue for a first meeting.
Tell someone where you are.
No unwanted personal contact. A polite "no thank you" ends the matter.
Do not use another member's contact details to add them to marketing lists, mailing lists, or WhatsApp groups without consent.

7. Money

Do not lend money to, borrow money from, or invest with, another member on the strength of the Circle introduction alone. If you do it anyway, do it on the strength of proper diligence and take proper advice.
Do not solicit investment from members via the forum or in meetings unless the founders have approved a specific structured pitch slot.
If you owe another member money and it is disputed, the Circle is not a debt-collection venue. Resolve it through the ordinary means.

8. Regulated activity

If your occupation is regulated, you conduct any regulated activity in accordance with the rules of your regulator, whether Circle-related or not.
The Circle is not itself a regulator. Nothing in this code purports to displace your own regulator's rules. Where there is a conflict, your own regulator's rules take precedence and you should tell us.

9. Conflicts of interest

Declare a conflict as soon as it arises, in the room or on the forum, and step back from the discussion.
Do not use information gained in the Circle for a purpose adverse to the person who supplied it.

10. Public statements

You may say that you are a member of the Circle. That is the extent of the endorsement we give you.
You do not speak for the Circle unless we have said, in writing, that you do.
You do not use the Circle name or logo on your own website, marketing material, or letterhead without our written permission. We give permission for a member's own personal profile page ("I am a member of the Bonsai Circle") as a matter of course; we do not give permission to advertise the Circle to sell your own services.

11. Complaints about a member's conduct under this code

The founders may raise a matter under the Complaints, Concerns and Removal Procedure.
Any member may raise a matter, in writing, under the same procedure.
Members may raise a concern anonymously; anonymous concerns are taken seriously subject to our ability to investigate.

12. What we do about breaches

Minor, first-time, no material harm: a private note from a founder, filed.
Substantive, or repeated, or harmful: formal warning, filed.
Serious, or on the confidentiality core: removal.

The Complaints, Concerns and Removal Procedure sets out the process, timeline, and appeal route.

13. What we do not do

We do not police tone in one-to-one commercial correspondence between members.
We do not adjudicate on commercial disputes between members, save where the conduct falls under this code.
We do not require you to like every other member. We do require you to behave.