Burgar Rowe Professional Corporation:
Privacy Schedule

COLLECTION, USE & DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

PRIMARY PURPOSES:

About Clients

• to provide legal services and advice
• to give legal opinions
• to contact the client

About Members of the General Public

• to gather and review information that is relevant to a legal issue affecting our clients
• to provide notice of special events (seminars or conferences, for instance)
• to make the general public aware of legal services in general or our firm in particular
• on our website, we only collect, with the exception of cookies, the personal information that you provide and we only use that information for the purposes for which you gave it. Cookies are only used to help you navigate our website and are not used to monitor you.

We will, on request, remove such personal information from our distribution lists.
We do not sell personal information or address lists to third party marketing companies.

About Contract Staff

• for necessary work-related communications
• to ensure that we can contact them in the future

Investigations

• to gather the necessary information and evidence to express a sound legal opinion on the issue for our client and represent them in legal proceedings.

In these instances, we often act without the consent of the subject of investigation because we are inquiring into an apparent breach of law or litigious dispute and obtaining consent would compromise the investigation.

COLLECTION, USE & DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

SECONDARY PURPOSES

Like most organizations, we also collect, use and disclose information for purposes related to or secondary to our primary purposes. The most common examples of our related or secondary purposes are as follows:

• to invoice clients for services rendered, process credit card payments, and collect unpaid accounts
• to advise clients and others of new developments in the law or firm news and changes
• to send greeting cards, invitations to events or firm marketing materials
• to ensure high quality services (ie) assessing performance of staff and partners
• to assist external advisors with audits or other quality assurance reviews

Lawyers in Ontario are regulated by the Law Society of Upper Canada which may inspect our records and interview our staff as a part of its regulatory activities in the public interest.

Our firm believes that it should report information suggesting serious illegal behavior as well as serious misconduct, incapacity or incompetence of other practitioners to the proper authorities. These reports could include personal information about our clients, or other individuals, to support the concern, although we try to keep this disclosure to a minimum and are always cognizant of solicitor and client privilege.

Various government agencies have the authority to review our files and interview our staff as part of their mandates (although solicitor-client privilege restricts their access to much of this information). In these circumstances, we may consult with professionals (lawyers and accountants, for instance).

Clients or other individuals may have questions about the services that we have provided after they have been received.
We provide ongoing services for many of our clients over a period of months or years for which previous records are helpful. Because our firm is a full service law firm, we have a tendency to act on behalf of clients in relation to several different areas of law and, sometimes, the information collected by one lawyer may be useful for the services being performed by another lawyer in our firm.

We retain our client information, as required by the Law Society of Upper Canada.

If Burgar Rowe Professional Corporation or its assets were to be sold, the purchaser would want to conduct a “due diligence” review of the firm’s records to ensure that it is a viable business that has been honestly portrayed to the purchaser. This due diligence may include some review of our accounting and service files. The purchaser would not be able to remove or record personal information. Before being provided access to the files, the purchaser would be required to sign a confidentiality agreement. Only reputable purchasers who have already agreed to buy the organization’s business or its assets would be provided access to personal information, and only for these limited purposes.
In providing legal services, we use a number of consultants and agencies that may, in the course of their duties, have limited access to personal information that we hold. These consultants include computer consultants, office security and maintenance, bookkeepers, accountants, file storage companies, temporary workers, credit card companies, website managers, cleaners and/or other lawyers. We restrict their access to any personal information that we hold as much as is reasonably possible. We also have their assurance that they will follow appropriate privacy principles.

HOW WE PROTECT PERSONAL INFORMATION

• Paper information is either under supervision or secured in restricted areas.
• Electronic hardware is either under supervision or secured in restricted areas. In addition, passwords are used on computers.
• When information is delivered outside of our offices, whether by fax, phone, email, courier or otherwise, we endeavor to use only reputable companies and agencies.
• Staff are trained to collect, use and disclose personal information only as is necessary to fulfill their duties and in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
• External consultants and agencies with access to personal information must enter into privacy agreements with us.

ACCESS TO YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

With some exceptions (one of which is quite broad), you have the right to see what personal information we hold about you. Often all you have to do is ask. We can help you identify what records we might have about you and help you understand that information, if there is any confusion. We will need to confirm your identity, if we do not know you, before providing you with this access. We reserve the right to charge a nominal fee for such requests.

If there are any issues surrounding the disclosure of information, we may ask you to put your request in writing. If we cannot give you access, we will tell you within 30 days if at all possible, providing you, to the best of our ability, with particulars as to why the information cannot be released. If we collect personal information about you for a client, there is a good chance that this information would be protected by solicitor and client privilege and we will not provide access to it without our client’s consent.

If you believe that there is a mistake in the information that we have collected, you have the right to ask for it to be corrected. This applies to factual information and not to any legal opinions that we may have formed and/or provided. We may ask you to provide evidence that our records are wrong. When we agree that we have made a mistake, we will correct that mistake and notify anyone to whom we sent the incorrect information. If we do not agree that we have made a mistake, we will still agree to include in our file a brief statement from you on the point and we will forward that statement to anyone else who received the earlier information.