Estofa Law acknowledges the significance of privacy and the delicate nature of personal information. As legal professionals, we hold a professional duty to maintain the confidentiality of all information shared within a lawyer-client relationship. Our partnership with you is built upon trust, and we remain dedicated to upholding that trust at all times
Our commitment to safeguarding personal information is paramount. Hence, we’ve formulated the ensuing privacy policy to delineate how we handle your personal data and ensure your privacy remains protected. This policy underscores our unwavering commitment to preserving your privacy and upholding the trust you’ve vested in our law firm. Rest assured, this privacy policy serves as our pledge to uphold the confidentiality and privacy of the personal information you’ve entrusted to us.
Reaching Out to the Firm through the Website
Contacting the firm via the website or email does not establish a solicitor/client relationship. Any correspondence initiated here should not be interpreted as legal advice but rather as a means to directly and promptly reach Estofa Law. Please refrain from sending confidential documents or information electronically until a retainer has been confirmed.
Your Privacy Rights
From January 1, 2016, all businesses engaged in commercial activities must comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (the “Act”) and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the protection of personal information, which it incorporates. These obligations extend to lawyers and law firms, including Estofa Law. The Act gives you rights concerning the privacy of your personal information.
Estofa Law is responsible for the personal information we collect and hold. To ensure this accountability, we have developed this policy and trained our lawyers and support staff about our policies and practices.
Reasons for Gathering Personal Information
Our firm collects personal information for the following limited purposes:
- to identify our clients in accordance with the requirements of The Law Society of Upper Canada
- to establish and maintain client lists
- to represent you as our client f
- or internal purposes including the professional development of firm lawyers and law clerks
What Personal Information Do We Collect?
Personal information is any information that identifies you, or by which your identity could be deduced. We collect and use your personal information in order to provide you with legal services. Our firm restricts the collection of personal information only to that information that is necessary for the purposes noted above. We are committed to collecting personal information in a fair, open and lawful manner. Wherever possible, we collect your personal information directly from you at the start of a retainer and in the course of our representation. In most cases, we shall ask you to specifically consent if we collect, use, or disclose your personal information. Sometimes, your consent may be implied through your conduct with us.
Use of Your Information
By retaining our firm, you have confirmed your trust in us. We are honoured by this trust and take pride in serving you. We use your personal information to provide legal advice and services to you and to administer our client (time and billing) databases. We are obliged for legal purposes to retain our client files after the end of the retainer. Estofa Law does not disclose your personal information to any third party to enable them to market their products and services. For example, we do not provide our client mailing lists to other law firms. Our firm stores and maintains personal information in conformity with the requirements of the Act and the model code for the protection of personal information created and approved by the Canadian Standards Association.
Release of Your Personal Information
Under certain circumstances, Estofa Law will disclose your personal information: You authorise your mobile carrier to disclose your mobile account details for the purpose of verifying your identity. Those details may include your name, address, and device details.
- When we are required or authorized by law to do so, for example if a court issues a subpoena
- When you have consented to the disclosure
- When the legal services we are providing to you require us to give your information to third parties (for example, a professional retained to conduct a mediation) your consent will be implied, unless you tell us otherwise;
- When it is necessary to establish or collect fees
- When it is necessary to establish or collect fees
- If we engage a third party to provide administrative services to us (like computer backup services or archival file storage) and the third party is bound by our privacy policy
- If we engage expert witnesses on your behalf
- If the information is already publicly known
Is my Personal Information Secure?
Our firm has developed and implemented security safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the personal information kept by us. We take reasonable precautions to ensure that your personal information is kept safe from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure. Among the steps taken to protect your information are:
- Premises security;
- Restricted file access to personal information;
- Deploying technological safeguards like security software and firewalls to prevent hacking or unauthorized computer access;
- Internal password and security policies
We ensure that any of our employees who deal with personal information are properly trained and are aware of the necessary and appropriate measures required to protect personal information.
Openness
Our firm makes information about its policies and practices respecting the collection and maintenance of personal information available to all interested parties. We are pleased to answer any questions that you may have regarding the collection and maintenance of your personal information. You may ask for access during regular business hours on reasonable notice to any personal information we hold about you. Summary information is available on request. More detailed requests, which require archive or other retrieval costs may be subject to our normal professional and disbursement fees.
Accuracy
Our firm is committed to maintaining accurate, complete and up-to-date personal information. If you are aware of changes to the personal information you have given to us, simply inform us of the changes and we will update our records accordingly.
Can I Request Anonymity?
Whenever it is legal and practicable, we may offer the opportunity to deal with general inquiries without providing your name (for example, by accessing general information on our website).
Communicating With us Using E-mail
You should be aware that e-mail is not a 100% secure medium and you should be aware of this when contacting us to send personal or confidential information, including instructions. Your use of e-mail in communicating with us will be your consent to our using e-mail to communicate with you, unless you instruct us otherwise in writing and to the collection and use of your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Estofa Law does not guarantee the security or confidentiality of any e-mail communication sent to, or by, Estofa Law unless prior arrangements have been made.
Changes to This Privacy Policy
Since Estofa Law regularly reviews all of its policies and procedures, we may change our privacy policy from time to time.
Requests for Access
If you have any questions or wish to access or update your personal information, please write to our Privacy Contact at Estofa Law.
Website
Our website, www.estofa.ca , contains links to other sites which are not governed by this Privacy Policy. The links you find on our website are for your convenience and do not constitute an endorsement, recommendation or approval of these other websites. Estofa Law does not assume responsibility for the privacy policies of the websites accessed through our website. Users should consult the privacy policies of such link sites before providing any personal information.
On our website, like most other commercial web sites, we may monitor traffic patterns, site usage and related site information in order to optimize our web service. We may provide aggregated information to third parties, but these statistics do not include any identifiable personal information.
We currently do not use cookies on this website. “Cookies” are small text files that recognize repeat visitors and track their visits to a website.
You should be aware that communicating with any lawyer through the website does not make you a client of Estofa Law.
Questions and Concerns
If you have any questions or comments about our Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, Please contact Estofa Law at [email protected]
