Privacy Policy

LEDROIT BECKETT recognizes the importance of privacy and the sensitivity of personal information. We have an obligation as lawyers to keep confidential all information we receive within our relationships with our clients. We are committed to protecting any personal information we hold within our relationship with our clients. This Privacy Policy outlines how we manage your personal information as our clients and safeguard your privacy.

Your Privacy Rights

From January 1, 2004, all businesses in Canada engaged in commercial activities must comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information, which it incorporates. These obligations appear to extend to lawyers and law firms, including LEDROIT BECKETT. The Act gives individuals rights concerning the privacy of your personal information.

LEDROIT BECKETT 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.

Why do we need personal information?

LEDROIT BECKETT provides legal services and products to a wide range of clients. We cannot provide legal services and products to our clients without collecting, using and disclosing personal information. In addition, we occasionally produce marketing materials concerning our services and developments in the law.

What personal information do we collect?

Personal information is any information that identifies you, or by which your identity could be deduced, but not business addresses and telephone numbers for employees of a business.

If we did not collect and use your personal information, we could not provide you with legal services.

How do we collect your personal information?

We collect information only by lawful and fair means and not in an unreasonably intrusive way. Wherever possible we collect your personal information directly from you, at the start of a retainer and in the course of our representation of you.

We may occasionally obtain information about you from other sources such as, but not limited to:

co-clients if you are one of several clients whom we jointly represent;
your insurance company;
your real estate agent in a property transaction;
from a government agency or registry;
your employer, if we are acting for you, at its request;
your accountant.

Consent

In most situations, we shall ask you to specifically consent, if we collect, use, or disclose your personal information. Normally, we ask for your consent in writing, but in some circumstances, we may accept your oral consent. Sometimes, your consent may be implied through your conduct or retainer with us.

Use of Your Information

We use your personal information to provide legal advice and services to you, to administer our firm including invoicing, billing and collections purposes, and to include you in any direct marketing activities. If you tell us that you no longer wish to receive our direct marketing such as information about our services, or about new developments in the law by contacting our privacy officer at 519-673-4994 we will not send any further material.

LEDROIT BECKETT 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. However, if you ask for a referral to another lawyer, with your oral or written consent, we may speak to the other lawyer about you and your personal information.

Disclosure of your Personal Information

Under certain circumstances, LEDROIT BECKETT will 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 give your information to third parties (for example a lender in a real estate mortgage transaction) your consent will be implied, unless you tell us otherwise;
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, on your behalf;
if the information is already publicly known.

Updating your information

Since we use your personal information to provide legal services to you, it is important that the information be accurate and up-to-date. If during the course of the retainer, any of your information changes, such as telephone number, email address or mailing address, please inform us as soon as possible so that we can make any necessary changes to our records.

Security of your personal information

LEDROIT BECKETT takes all reasonable precautions to ensure that your personal information is kept safe from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure, including steps to ensure that:

1 our offices are secure;
2 the files in our office are only accessible by persons who are subject to this privacy policy and have been trained regarding our privacy policy; and,
3 our computers are protected from outside access including passwords, security software and firewalls.

Access to Your Personal Information

You may ask for access to any personal information we hold about you. Summary information will be made available upon request. More detailed requests such as those which would require archive or other retrieval costs may be subject to our normal professional and disbursement fees.

Correcting Errors

If LEDROIT BECKETT holds information about you and you can establish that it is not accurate, complete and up-to-date, LEDROIT BECKETT will take reasonable steps to correct it.

Can I be Denied Access to My Personal Information?

Your rights to access your personal information are not absolute. We may deny you access to personal information when:

denial of access is required or authorized by law (for example, when a record containing personal information about you is subject to a claim of legal professional privilege by one of our clients);
information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings against you;
when granting you access would have an unreasonable impact on other people's privacy;
when to do so would prejudice negotiations with you;
to protect our firm's rights and property;
where the request is frivolous or vexatious.

If we deny your request for access to, or refuse a request to correct information, we shall explain why in writing to you.

LEDROIT BECKETT does not use your Social Insurance Number as a way of identifying or organizing the information we hold upon you.

Can I request anonymity.

The Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act may require us to confirm the identity of all new clients. It may also require us disclose information to FINTRAC in relation to certain large cash transactions.

Communicating with us

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.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

Since LEDROIT BECKETT 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 your personal information, please write to our Privacy Officer at 630 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 3G6, Telephone 519-673-4994.

If you are not satisfied with our response, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada can be reached at 112 Kent Street, Ottawa Ontario, K1A 1H3, telephone 1-800-282-1376.

Web Site

Our website may 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 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.

If you have any questions regarding our privacy policy, please contact our Privacy Officer at 630 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 3G6, Telephone 519-673-4994.