WEBSITE TERMS OF USE, PRIVACY POLICY & COOKIE POLICY

TERMS OF USE

By visiting the website of Unified LLP (the “Firm”), you agree to the following terms and conditions, on the basis of which access to the information on the website is provided.

When you visit the website of Unified LLP or use the website to contact us, you do not establish a lawyer-client relationship with the Firm.  A lawyer-client relationship will only be established when you and the Firm enter into a written Retainer Agreement or where such a relationship is otherwise established by law through the clear agreement of the parties.

Unless lawyer-client relationship has been established, our professional obligations of confidentiality do not extend to you, and solicitor-client privilege may not apply.  DO NOT send confidential information to the Firm via our website unless and until such a relationship has been established.  Our obligations to existing clients may require us to disclose that information to them in appropriate circumstances.

You may contact any of our lawyers to inquire about establishing a lawyer-client relationship through the individual contact information on their biographical pages, subject to these terms and conditions.

Unified LLP disclaims any solicitor-client relationship, any liability for loss of confidentiality or any other cause of action arising from your failure to be aware of and act in accordance with these Terms of Use, and by visiting our website, you agree to this disclaimer.

Unified LLP is committed to protecting the privacy of confidential and “Personal Information” (information that directly or indirectly identifies individuals who may  be clients, staff, agents, lawyers, law students, job applicants or others inside or outside the Firm). It has always been and remains the policy of Unified LLP to comply with the Rules of Professional Conduct, which impose a duty to preserve and protect confidential client information, upon lawyers and their associated personnel. 

PRIVACY POLICY

The following privacy policy discloses Unified LLP’s practices and policies regarding the gathering and dissemination of personal information.

Collection and Use of Personal Information

Unified LLP collects Personal Information in the course of providing legal services to clients and as provided by visitors to its website or users of Internet Services. “Internet Services” include our Firm’s website, union portal, contact form, applications, social media sites, extranets, as well as e-mail messages that we send to you. We may also collect Personal Information about you when you interact with us on social media sites and from other third parties and may also automatically collect information that may contain Personal Information as described below in the cookie policy.

Personal Information We Collect 

When you visit our website, use our contact form, utilize our union portal, or sign up to receive our newsletter or other content, there is some personal information that is collected from you. Personal Information includes:

  • your name, phone number and email address.
  • account preferences, including whether or not you wish to receive our newsletter and website update information by email
  • any other information you voluntarily send to us through our website contact form or union portal 

Personal Information is information that directly or indirectly identifies individuals who may be clients, staff, agents, lawyers, law students, job applicants or others inside or outside Unified LLP. 

We may use that Personal Information where in our legitimate interest to do so for the following purposes:

  • to contact you and respond to your requests and enquiries
  • to personalize your visit and use of our Internet Services and to assist you while you use those services
  • to carry out, monitor and analyze our business or website operations
  • to conduct our recruiting and selection process
  • to provide you with legal services, if you are or become a client of the Firm, and otherwise deal with you, and administer the matters you instruct us on
  • to contact you (unless you tell us that you prefer us not to) regarding legal or law firm developments that may be of interest to you. If you do not want to receive publications or details of events or seminars that we consider may be of interest to you, you may do so by clicking on the unsubscribe link in electronic marketing communications
  • to enter into or carry out contracts of various kinds
  • to comply with applicable laws, regulations, guidance or professional obligations that we may be subject to, including anti-money laundering requirements. Where Personal Information is necessary for the Firm to carry out its anti-money laundering checks failure to provide such information may result in the Firm not being able to provide the representation.

Third Parties’ Access to Information 

Unified LLP is not in the business of selling customer information to others. Our customer information is not available for sale to any outside entity. We contract with third parties to fulfill certain functions on our behalf, such as providing marketing assistance, analyzing data, preparing and maintaining site content, processing credit card payments, and providing customer service. These agents have access to customer information only as required in order to help them perform their functions on our behalf, but they are not allowed to use that information for any other purpose and must keep such information confidential.

Unified LLP will release customer information to the appropriate law enforcement, governmental or other authorities if legally required to do so.

Security 

Unified LLP stores subscriber information on our website in a secure manner. We store such information in a manner not accessible to Web browsers, behind firewall and password protection, or offline.

Employees, agents and affiliates of Unified LLP who require access to your personal information in order to fulfill their job or contractual requirements will have access to your personal information to the extent necessary to fulfill such requirements.

Consent 

Consent to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information may be given in various ways. Consent can be express (e.g., orally, electronically or on a form you may sign describing the intended uses and disclosures of personal information) or implied (e.g., when you provide information necessary for a service you have requested, or in some circumstances where notice has been provided to you about our intentions with respect to your personal information and you have not withdrawn your consent for an identified purpose, such as by using an opt out option provided). Consent may be given by your authorized representative (such as a legal guardian or a person having a power of attorney). Generally, by providing us with personal information, we will assume that you consent to our collection, use and disclosure of such information for the purposes identified or described in this privacy policy, if applicable, or as otherwise described at the time of collection. You may withdraw your consent to our collection, use and disclosure of personal information at any time, subject to contractual and legal restrictions and reasonable notice, however, please 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 products or services.

Unified LLP does not collect, use or disclose your personal information other than as described in this privacy policy without your consent, unless permitted or required by law. We may be required or permitted under statute or regulation to collect, use or disclose personal information without your consent, for example in response to a court order or subpoena, to comply with local or federal regulations.

Confidentiality, Security, and Retention of Personal Information

Consistent with our professional obligations, it has always been the policy of Unified LLP to exercise the utmost discretion regarding the information our clients entrust to us.

We maintain reasonable and appropriate, albeit not infallible, physical, electronic and procedural safeguards intended to maintain the confidentiality of Personal Information, including that provided by a visitor to this website and provided while using other Internet Services. We do not guarantee that our safeguards will always work.

We require consultants, suppliers and vendors to maintain data protections consistent with reasonable and appropriate obligations of data processors, including, where applicable, European Union’s data protection laws and regulations.

We may retain information provided by you, including Personal Information, for as long as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, or to achieve the purposes for which the information was originally collected and for the purposes described in the Statement and in our applicable policies. If you wish to obtain more details on our information practices, please contact us. 

COOKIE POLICY

A cookie is a text file sent by a web server and placed on your computer by your web browser. Cookies can be usefully divided into two different types, session and persistent. Session cookies differ from persistent cookies primarily in that session cookies are temporary and expire and are normally deleted when you close your browser. Persistent cookies, in contrast, remain stored on your computer after you close your browser until they are deleted either because they expire or you delete them. Unified LLP uses session cookies in connection with its Internet Services, except for Internet Services that require you to log in, such as our client extranets, and a Region Code cookie that persists over time and ensures that you are directed to the correct version of our website.

Cookies are often used in conjunction with other Internet technologies, such as web beacons, to understand behavior on the Internet. For example, Unified LLP uses cookies in conjunction with web beacons, which are small sections of code that we may place in our Internet Services to understand the number of unique users that have visited a specific page. Similarly, we may use or receive reporting from tracking scripts that recognize unique cookies issued by another website. These tracking scripts are not used to gather information on your use of the Internet unrelated to the Firm, and they do not identify you unless you choose to provide Personal Information to the Firm.

The Firm’s Internet Services use cookies. The Firm uses session cookies in connection with its Internet Services, specifically for cybersecurity purposes, to provide you with customizations of your experience, such as highlighting your recently viewed items, to detect and remember your region and language preferences, and track your activities on the Internet Services. We also use a Region Code cookie that persists over time and ensures that you are directed to the correct version of our website.

Although the Firm uses the services of third parties in connection with these cookies, we do not allow the third-party service provider to use Personal Information about the users of our Internet Services. 

None of these cookies are strictly necessary to access our Internet Services. You may reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to allow your browser to alert you when a cookie is set, however, certain parts of the Internet Services may function differently and not as well. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our Internet Services will issue cookies when you logon to the Firm’s Internet Services. For more information about how to manage your cookies preferences, you should use the “help” menu of your web browser or explore the customer support sections of your web browser. Please note that you need to configure each browser on each device that you use if you wish to opt-out or block some or all cookies. 

Contact 

Please contact Unified LLP at 416.639.7650 if you have any questions about the Firm’s above-noted policies.