Sullivan Mahoney LLP (“Sullivan Mahoney”) is a full service Niagara law firm with offices in St. Catharines and Niagara Falls. The lawyers and staff at Sullivan Mahoney (sometimes “we”) recognize the importance of privacy and the sensitivity of personal information. We are committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy outlines how we handle your personal information to protect your privacy.
Privacy Legislation
Since January 1, 2004, all business collecting, using or disclosing personal information in commercial activities must comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”). These obligations extend to lawyers and law firms, including Sullivan Mahoney. As lawyers offering legal services, we have a professional and ethical obligation to keep confidential the information we receive within a lawyer-client relationship. To ensure this accountability, we have developed this policy, and trained our lawyers and support staff about our policies and procedures.
What Personal Information Do We Collect?
Personal information is defined broadly by PIPEDA as any information that identifies you, or by which you could be identified. However, personal information does not include business/contact information – name, title, business address or telephone and facsimile numbers – that one generally finds on a business card.
Sullivan Mahoney provides legal services and products to a wide range of clients. In doing so, we periodically produce marketing and advertising materials concerning our services and developments in the law. The types of personal information that Sullivan Mahoney may collect about you includes your name, home and billing address, telephone number, email coordinates, legal issues and information relating to providing legal advice and services to you. If Sullivan Mahoney did not collect and use your personal information, we could not provide you with legal services.
How Do We Collect Your Personal Information?
Sullivan Mahoney collects personal information only by lawful means and not in any intrusive manner. Generally, we collect your personal information directly from you at the start of your retainer or in the course of our representation. We may also obtain personal information about you from other sources including:
- other individuals within your company or organization that we represent;
- your insurance company or financial institution;
- your real estate agent in a property transaction;
- public data records, a government agency or registry;
- your employer; if we are acting for you at the employer’s request; or
- your accountant or other professional advisor(s).
Consent to Collection, Use and Disclosure of Personal Information
YOU EXPRESSLY CONSENT AND AGREE THAT BY SUBMITTING PERSONAL INFORMATION TO SULLIVAN MAHONEY AND OUR AGENTS, WE MAY COLLECT, USE AND DISCLOSE SUCH PERSONAL INFORMATION ACCORDING TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY AND AS PERMITTED BY LAW. You may, at any time on reasonable notice, withdraw your consent for certain purposes or in whole by contacting the Privacy Officer of Sullivan Mahoney. If you do so, we may not be able to represent you or continue to provide you certain services, advice and information which may be of value to you.
Use of Personal Information
Sullivan Mahoney uses your personal information in order to provide professional legal services to you, to issue invoices or accounts, to maintain our client database and to include you in communications about recent legal developments or news and to invite you to our firm’s events.
Disclosure of Your Personal Information
Sullivan Mahoney does not disclose your personal information without your consent, under certain circumstances including:
- when we are required or authorized by law to do so, for example, if a court issues a subpoena/notice to witness;
- where it is necessary to establish or collect fees;
- if we engage a third party to provide administrative services to us (like computer back-up services or archival file storage) and the third party is bound by our privacy policy;
- if we engage expert witnesses on your behalf;
- if we retain other law firms at your request, and on your behalf; and
- if the information is already on the public record.
When our retainer requires us to give information to third parties (such as a lender in a mortgage transaction) your consent will be implied. From time to time we may transfer your personal information to our service providers. Under PIPEDA, such a transfer is not considered to be a disclosure requiring your consent, however we will ensure that the third party service provider is bound by obligations of privacy, consistent with this Privacy Policy.
Accuracy of Your Personal Information
Since we use your personal information to provide legal services to you, it is important that the personal information be accurate and up-to-date. If any of your personal information should change during the course of the retainer, please inform us so that we can make the necessary changes. From time to time we may also seek to verify the accuracy of your personal information.
Safeguards to Keep Your Personal Information Secure
Sullivan Mahoney takes all reasonable precautions to ensure that your personal information is kept safe and protected against loss, theft, misuse, disclosure, unauthorized access or disclosure. Steps taken to protect your personal information include; security of our office premises; restricted file access to personal information; security software and firewalls to prevent unauthorized computer access or “hacking”; and internal passwords or security protocols that restrict access to our electronic files.
Access to Your Personal Information
You have a right to challenge the accuracy and completeness of, as well as to request access to, your personal information. If the requested information would disclose personal information about another individual then your access may be limited or denied. To request access or to amend your personal information, please contact the lawyer with whom you normally correspond or write to our Privacy Officer at the address below. Sullivan Mahoney will respond within 30 days of receipt of your written request.
Website Privacy
Our website contains links to other sites, which are not governed by this Privacy Policy. On our website, like most other commercial websites, we may monitor traffic patterns, site usage and related site information. Our website service will automatically collect certain information, like IP addresses and we may use a browser feature called a “cookie” to optimize your visit to our website. You may set your browser to turn cookies off whenever you visit any website. We do not link your IP address or cookies to other identifiable personal information. We may provide aggregated information to third parties, but these statistics do not include any identifiable personal information.
Privacy Officer
Sullivan Mahoney has appointed Sara J. Premi in our St. Catharines office as Privacy Officer to oversee compliance with this Privacy Policy and applicable privacy laws. If you have any questions or complaints about this Privacy Policy or the use of your personal information we have on file, please contact:
SARA J. PREMI
Sullivan Mahoney LLP
40 Queen Street, Box 1360
St. Catharines, ON L2R 6Z2
sjpremi@sullivanmahoney.com
Tel: 905-688-6655
Fax: 905-688-5814