Privacy

Your Privacy Rights

BE Law respects the importance of privacy and the sensitivity of personal information. As lawyers we have a professional obligation to keep confidential all information we obtain within a lawyer-client relationship. We are committed to protecting any personal information we possess. This Privacy Policy outlines our procedure with respect to the management of your personal information and the safeguards in place to protect your privacy. This Policy explains how we collect, use and disclose personal information in Canada.

Personal Information Collected by BE Law

For the purposes of this Policy, "personal information" is any information that identifies you, or by which your identity could be deduced. It includes: your name, contact information, telephone number, email address, facsimile number, billing and account information, information relevant to a client's legal matters and other information incidental to the provision of legal advice and services of our firm. Personal information may include personal information about directors, officers, and employees of a client or other party, witnesses, beneficiaries, family members, experts, investigators, decision-makers, adverse parties, other counsel, mediators and arbitrators, and information about shareholders, investors, potential investors or buyers, business partners, targets, competitors or customers of clients.

If you apply to BE Law for a job, we need to consider your personal information as part of our hiring process. We normally retain information from candidates after a decision has been made, unless you ask us not to retain the information. If we offer you a job, which you accept, the information will be retained in accordance with our privacy procedures for employee records.

On our website, like most other commercial websites, 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.

How BE Law Collects Your Information

Wherever possible, we collect your personal information directly from you at the start of a retainer and throughout the course of our representation of you, both verbally or by written correspondence, including in person, by emails and telephone inquiries.

Sometimes we may obtain information about you from other sources, for example:

your insurance company, your financial institute, or your employer;
a government agency or registry;
your accountant, or other professional business adviser;
other law firms, agents or consultants retained by you in the past where these parties have information relevant to the matter in which we are acting for you.

Consent

By providing personal information to BE Law, or its service providers and agents, you agree that we may collect, use and disclose such personal information in accordance with the Privacy Policy and as permitted or required by law. Subject to legal requirements and reasonable notice, you may refuse to consent to our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information or you may withdraw your consent to our further collection, use and disclosure of information about you by contacting Hilary Book or Sara Erskine. Note that if you withdraw your consent to certain uses of your personal information, we may no longer be able to provide certain of our services.

Purpose For Which Your Information Is Collected

BE Law collects, uses, and discloses personal information in order to provide our clients with professional legal services. In particular, we collect, use and disclose personal information for the following purposes:

in order to provide you with legal services, fulfil legal duties and avoid conflicts of interest;
client identification and verification;
administrative management, to invoice you for legal services, administer accounts, collect and process payments, evaluate credit standing, fulfill contractual obligations and audit our business operations;
for mailings such as newsletters and announcements relating to our firm;
to establish and manage client relationships;
to contact and communicate with clients and other individuals for the purpose of conducting market research, and evaluating client service and satisfaction;
to meet legal requirements such as complying with court orders and subpoenas;
to provide information to representatives and advisors to help us comply with legal, accounting or security requirements;
to consider the admission of individuals or employees as members of the firm;
for any other purpose for which we have your consent or otherwise permitted by law.

We will not collect personal information indiscriminately and we will not provide your personal information to any third party to allow them to market their products or services.

Disclosure of Your Personal Information

Under certain circumstances, BE Law may disclose your personal information:

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 requires us to give your information to third parties (such as expert witnesses) your consent will be implied, unless you tell us otherwise;
where it is necessary to establish or collect fees;
to regulatory (including self-regulatory) or governmental authorities, for example, disclosure of personal information reasonably requested or required by governing bodies of the legal profession in the course of its oversight of our practice;
if we engage a third party to provide administrative services or eDiscovery services to us (such as computer back-up services or archival file storage) and the third party is bound by our privacy policy;
if we retain other law firms on your behalf;
to a person who in our reasonable opinion is providing or seeking information as your agent.

Retention and Security

BE Law retains personal information only as long as it is needed by us to provide our services. The personal information is stored in secured locations and on servers at the offices of our service providers in Canada. Be Law has implemented reasonable physical, organizational and security measures to safeguard the personal information in our custody or control. These include safeguards to protect personal information against loss or theft, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification. In some circumstances, personal information may be stored in an off-site storage facility until we determine it is no longer required.

Accuracy

It is important that your personal information be accurate and up-to-date. During the course of our retainer, we ask that you provide us with any changes to your personal information, and contact your lawyer to update the personal information we maintain in our client files.

Changes to the Privacy Policy

BE Law regularly reviews all of it policies and procedures and may change this Privacy Policy from time to time.

Access to Your Personal Information

You may request to view your personal information by writing to the Chief Privacy Officer, whose address and email are provided below. Please note that under certain circumstances, you may not be permitted access, for example where solicitor-client privilege or litigation privilege applies, or where the disclosure of your records would cause security, legal or confidentiality concerns.

Inquiries

Hilary Book at hilary@be-law.ca or Sara Erskine at sara@be-law.ca