Privacy Policy – Stewart LPC

Stewart LPC is committed to maintaining the confidentiality of our clients’ information, consistent with our obligations as professionals. This commitment extends to the Personal Information of our clients and others, including visitors to our website (“you”). This Privacy Policy is a statement of the principles and guidelines concerning the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information by Stewart LPC.

Personal Information

Personal Information is any information about an identifiable individual or that permits an individual to be identified. In general, Personal Information does not include business contact information, such as your name, title, business address, telephone number, facsimile number or e-mail address.

Collection, Use and Disclosure of Personal Information

Stewart LPC collects, uses and discloses Personal Information in order to provide you with professional legal or other related services, including for the following purposes:

to establish and manage client relationships, provide legal advice, perform legal services, fulfill legal duties, and avoid conflicts of interest;
to share Personal Information with third parties for the purposes of providing legal services in the context of legal proceedings or business transactions;
to establish and maintain commercial relationships with clients, service providers, agents, contractors or other third parties, including to administer accounts and records and to bill for services;
to communicate with clients, service providers, agents, contractors and other third parties about our firm and our services or about legal developments that we think would interest you;
to develop and manage our document management, knowledge-management and precedent systems and databases;
to develop and manage our business and operations, including any financing involving Stewart LPC;
to detect and protect against error, negligence, breach of contract, fraud, theft and other illegal activity, and to audit compliance with our policies and contractual obligations;
to fulfill our legal and professional obligations; and
as permitted or required by law or for purposes for which you otherwise provide your consent.

Stewart LPC may also collect information about your business and business interests or your personal interests to better serve you and foster our relationship. When possible, we will collect Personal Information from you directly. However, to provide legal services to clients or for legal, administrative, marketing or management purposes, we may also collect information from outside sources (including, credit bureaus, government agencies or institutions or through other third parties such as accountants or other professional advisors). We may also collect information as agents on behalf of our clients where we or they have obtained the requisite consent.

Consent

We use Personal Information as described in this Privacy Policy or as otherwise permitted or required by law. Before your Personal Information is used or disclosed for a new purpose, we will ask for your consent unless use or disclosure without your consent in the circumstances is otherwise permitted or required by law. Consent may be provided orally or in writing or may be implied, such as when you initiate contact with us or voluntarily provide Personal Information to us. We assume that clients who retain us, or individuals involved in proceedings or matters opposite or adverse to our clients, consent to the reasonable collection, use and disclosure of their Personal Information by our professionals and agents for purposes of our representation or provision of legal services to our clients and the conduct of the transactions or proceedings involving our clients. To the extent that you provide us with Personal Information of another individual, you represent that you have the necessary consent or authority to permit us to collect, use and disclose such Personal Information for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.

We do not collect, use or disclose Personal Information without consent unless permitted or required by law to do so, such as in the following circumstances:

if a client provides Personal Information about third parties to us for purposes of our legal representation or advice to the client;
where a court order or subpoena is issued, or under applicable rules of production, a regulatory or other body with jurisdiction to compel production so requires;
when the information is publicly available within the meaning of applicable privacy legislation, such as in professional or other directories, in public registries, publicly-filed court records or information appearing in published form;
if we are investigating the breach of an agreement, a legal duty or contravention of a law and obtaining consent would compromise the investigation or the accuracy of the information;
if we are required to disclose Personal Information to a lawful authority. As practicing lawyers, we are subject to professional and ethical obligations and we do not disclose Personal Information subject to lawyer-client privilege unless the privilege is lawfully waived or we are required by law to do so.

Service Providers

Stewart LPC may enter into arrangements with service providers, agents, contractors and other third parties, within or outside of Canada, for administrative, processing or other services related to services rendered to and for our clients (e.g. data processing, computer backup services or archival storage services and office services). Where we transfer your Personal Information for these purposes, we limit such parties’ use of the Personal Information to the services it provides to us, and we require such parties to maintain the confidentiality of the Personal Information and to take steps to protect the security of the Personal Information. Personal Information provided to service providers, agents, contractors or other third parties outside of Canada is subject to the laws of those jurisdictions, and may be accessed by governmental authorities in those jurisdictions.

Safeguarding Your Personal Information

Stewart LPC takes all reasonable precautions to ensure that Personal Information is kept safe from loss or theft, unauthorized access, use, modification or disclosure.

Please note that no method of transmitting or storing information is completely secure. While we take appropriate steps to safeguard information under our control, there is always a risk that it may be lost, intercepted, altered or misused. There is an inherent risk involved in the exchange of information using any form of communication, such as e-mail, telephone, fax and courier service. We cannot guarantee that exchanges of information will always be received, or that such communications and documents will be virus free. We assume no liability for any loss, costs or damages you may suffer as a result of the loss, interception, alteration or misuse of information during such transfers. E-mail is our preferred method of communication and, unless you object, we will use unencrypted plain text e-mails when communicating with you.

Privacy and Website

COOKIES – Cookies are small data files that are sent to your browser and stored on your computer’s hard-drive when you visit certain web sites in order to “track” your visit to the site. Stewart LPC may, from time to time, collect non-Personal Information about you and your use of the site though the use of cookies. We do not match or correlate this information with any Personal Information that you submit on the website. Some browsers can be set to reject all cookies; if you choose to modify your browser in this manner, some of the features of the website will not be available to you. This information is used for no other purpose.

ON-LINE COMMUNICATIONS – In order to provide our website visitors with a service or information, visitors may voluntarily submit Personal Information to us for such purposes as obtaining information, participating in an event or a survey or asking a question. We use the Personal Information you provide only for the purpose for which you have provided it. If you are known to Stewart LPC as a registered user of an online service, we may combine and store Personal Information about your use of our website and the online information you have provided with certain other online and offline information we may have collected.

LINKS – Our website may present links to other websites. You should be aware that operators of linked websites may also collect your Personal Information and information generated through the use of cookies when you link to their websites. Stewart LPC is not responsible for how such third parties collect, use or disclose your Personal Information, so it is important to review their privacy policies before providing them with your Personal Information.

Accuracy and Access to Personal Information

In order to provide a professional level of service and to maintain appropriate contact preferences, we may ask you to update your Personal Information, contact information or preferences from time to time.

You may access, verify and amend your Personal Information collected by us. Any request for access must be in writing addressed to your lawyer or our Privacy Officer at the address below. In certain circumstances we may be unable to provide you with access to some or all of your Personal Information or we may deny your request to correct information. If we are unable to provide you with access or we deny your request, we will provide an explanation of the reasons for doing so.

Changes to the Privacy Policy

Stewart LPC reserves the right to modify or supplement this Privacy Policy at any time. If we make a change to this Privacy Policy, we will post such changes on our website and make such revised policy and changes available upon request to our Privacy Officer.

Questions or Concerns

If you have any questions or concerns about our Personal Information management practices, or if you wish to change any consent regarding our collection, use and disclosure of your Personal Information, please contact us.