Cavanagh LLP (“Cavanagh”) recognizes the importance of protecting personal information and an individual’s right to privacy. This policy outlines the framework of Cavanagh’s policies and procedures regarding its collection, use, retention and disclosure of personal information in respect of its clients and others and supplements, where applicable, our professional obligations of confidentiality and solicitor/client privilege. This Privacy Policy does not apply to personal information about employment candidates or our employees, partners, or contracted staff, which is dealt with in a separate policy.Our privacy policies and procedures only apply to personal information about identifiable individuals. They do not apply to business information. Personal information does not include the name, title, business address or telephone number of an employee of an organization. In the context of this policy, the term “clients” includes all current, former and prospective clients.

Why Do We Collect Personal Information?

Generally, we collect personal information in order to provide legal or other related services to our clients, to administer client accounts, to establish and manage client relationships and other commercial relationships, and to comply with regulatory requirements.

What Personal Information Do We Collect?

Personal information that we collect includes:

• contact information
• financial information
• information relating to a client’s legal issues
• information about others collected in the course of representing a client, such as a client’s employees, other parties to a transaction or lawsuit, or witnesses
• information regarding visitors to our offices
• information that you have consented to us collecting, or information that we are otherwise permitted by law to collect.

How Do We Collect Your Personal Information?

We collect your personal information only by lawful and fair means and only with your consent or as required or permitted by law. Whenever possible and appropriate, we collect your personal information from you directly or from persons whom you have requested to provide us with information. Sometimes we may collect information about you from other sources such as financial institutions, insurance companies,  witnesses in litigation matters, other parties involved in your transaction or file, government agencies or registries, employers (if we are acting for you at your employer’s request), accountants or other professional advisors, and credit bureaus.

How Do We Use Your Information?

We may use your personal information for the following purposes:

• to provide legal and related services
• to conduct conflict searches, in order to determine if we can represent you
• to assess client eligibility for credit
• to administer client accounts
• to fulfill our legal and professional obligations, including client identification and verification rules and other requirements of applicable provincial law societies
• to manage our business, including fulfilling contractual obligations and auditing our operations
• to detect and prevent negligence, fraud and theft
• to evaluate client satisfaction
• to provide you with information about our services and about developments in the law, to invite you to our functions and to communicate with you generally
• for security and emergency purposes (for visitors to our offices)

Disclosure of Your Personal Information

Subject to our professional obligations of confidentiality, Cavanagh will only disclose your personal information for purposes related to its providing services to you, or with your express consent, or if required or authorized by law. For example, we may disclose your information:

• when disclosure to third parties assists us in providing you the legal services that you have requested, including engaging expert witnesses, retaining other law firms at your request
• when necessary to collect outstanding accounts or to assess eligibility for credit
• when necessary to comply with court orders, regulatory rules (including the rules of applicable provincial law societies) or to satisfy our insurance requirements
• when we reasonably believe that a third party requesting your personal information is your agent.

Consent

We may obtain your consent to our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information either expressly, for stated purposes, or impliedly when the purposes are indicated by the relevant circumstances or follow logically from other stated purposes. By providing us with personal information, you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of information relating to providing our services, managing our relationship with you, administering our business and as permitted or required by law, in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

We will seek your consent before using personal information for any purpose beyond the scope of your original consent. You may withdraw your consent at any time, subject to legal and contractual restrictions and reasonable notice. Please note, however, that withdrawing consent may affect our ability to serve you and maintain our relationship.

Updating Information

Since we may use your information to provide legal services to you, it is important that the information be accurate and up to date. Please inform us if any of your information changes so that we can make any necessary changes.

Security of Your Personal Information

We have policies and procedures in place to protect your personal information from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure. In addition, we operate out of secure premises and have implemented technological safeguards including security software, passwords and firewalls to prevent unauthorized computer access.

Please note that no method of transmitting or storing information is completely secure. While we take appropriate measures to protect your personal information, there is always a risk that it may be lost, intercepted or misused. We may exchange electronic versions of documents and e-mails with you using commercially available software that is vulnerable to attack by viruses and other destructive electronic programs. We cannot guarantee that all communications and documents sent via e-mail will always be received, or that such communications and documents will always be virus free. We make no warranty with respect to the integrity of any electronic communications between us and you or with respect to the security of any such communication and you consent to our exchange of electronic communications, including confidential documents, unencrypted.

Storage of Your Personal Information

Your personal information is stored at secure locations and on servers controlled by Cavanagh. It may also be stored at the offices of our service providers.

Information Transferred to Service Providers

When we transfer your personal information to a third party to provide administrative and other services, we use appropriate measures to ensure that the third party will only use your personal information to perform the services we have specified.

Access to Your Personal Information

You may ask for access to any information that we hold about you. You also may ask how we collected the information, how we are using it, and to whom we have disclosed it. Your request for access must be in writing, and should be sent to your regular Cavanagh lawyer or to our Firm Manager. We will acknowledge your request in writing. We may request that you provide us with information to allow us to confirm your identity before providing you with the information that you have requested. Access will generally be provided free of charge; however, if you request that information be copied or transmitted, we may charge a reasonable fee. We will notify you of the amount of the charge in advance, and provide you with an opportunity to withdraw your request. We will provide you with access to your information within 30 days of our receipt of your request, or provide written notice that additional time is required to comply with your request.

In certain circumstances we may be unable to provide access to some or all of the information that we hold about you. If we are unable or not permitted by law to provide you with access, we will provide you with an explanation and indicate further steps which are available to you.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We regularly review our privacy policies and procedures. Therefore, we may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. The most current version of our Privacy Policy will be posted on our website at www.Cavanagh.ca. Regardless of any changes we make to our Privacy Policy, we will only use your personal information in accordance with the version of the Privacy Policy in place at the time you provided your information, or as otherwise required or permitted by law, unless you have given your express consent for us to do otherwise.

Questions or Concerns

If you have any questions or concerns or wish to obtain further information about our personal information policies and procedures, or if you wish to access your personal information or change any consent regarding our use or disclosure of your personal information, please contact our Firm Manager at the address set out below, or your regular Cavanagh lawyer. We will treat all privacy concerns seriously. We will investigate any concern and seek to resolve it within a reasonable time.