Privacy Policy
As professionals engaged in providing legal services, Herrling Clark Law Firm, LTD, including its members and affiliated attorneys (collectively, the “Firm”) 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, job applicants or others inside or outside the Firm). It has always been and remains the policy of the firm to comply with the rules of professional conduct, which imposes a duty upon lawyers and their associated personnel to preserve and protect confidential client information, as well as other applicable laws governing privacy of Personal Information.
This Privacy Policy is based on the privacy and data protection principles common to the states in which we operate. We apply this Privacy Policy in light of our obligations to comply with the law, to preserve client confidentiality, and to represent our clients as effectively as possible within the bounds of the law. This Privacy Policy is intended to summarize the Firm’s data protection practices generally, and to advise our clients, job applicants, website visitors, and other third parties about the Firm’s privacy policies that may be applicable to them.
This Privacy Policy is also specifically addressed to parties outside the Firm, including our clients, who provide Personal Information to the Firm, visit or use the Firm’s website and/or our social media sites and correspond with us by email, including messages that we send to you containing a link to this Privacy Policy (collectively, the “Internet Services”). This Privacy Policy also describes how the Firm collects, uses, discloses and secures Personal Information obtained in connection with the provision of legal services and the Internet Services (referred to together as the “Services”).
Collection, Use, and Disclosure of Personal Information
The Firm collects Personal Information in the course of providing legal services to our clients and prospective clients and as provided by visitors to our website and/or users of the Internet Services. We may also collect Personal Information about you when you interact with us on social media sites and from third parties as described below.
Our Collection of Personal Information
By providing Personal Information to us, you are consenting to and expressly authorizing our collection of Personal Information such as the following, and from certain sources including, but not necessarily limited to, the following:
- Information we receive from and/or about you, such as your name, dba(s), address, telephone number, email and social media addresses, date of birth in the case of individuals, credit card information, Employer Identification Number (“EIN”), Social Security number (“SSN”); and including, without limitation, other information that you provide to us online, via email, over the phone or in documents, applications and otherwise;
- Information about your financial, loan, debt and other related transactions, including without limitation, your income, expenses, account balances with your creditors, accounts with financial services companies, loan and payment histories, account activity, and other information provided to us by you or that may be contained in your credit card statements or other reports relating to your debts and any and all other financial information concerning you; and
- Information we receive from entities such as the Better Business Bureau, Yelp, consumer reporting agencies and other sources, such as your credit bureau reports, collection agency reports or other communications, and other information relating to your payment histories, creditworthiness, annual income, expenses and/or ability to satisfy your obligations. In this regard, you expressly authorize us to access, obtain and use any information contained in all of the foregoing resources and credit reports
Our Use of Personal Information
By providing Personal Information to us, you are consenting to and expressly authorizing us to use your Personal Information in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to, the following:
- 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.
- 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.
Confidentiality, Security and Retention of Personal Information
Consistent with our professional obligations, it has always been the policy of the Firm 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, 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 this Policy. If you wish to obtain more details on our information practices, please refer to the “Contact Us” section below.
Log Files
The Firm follows a standard procedure of using log files on its website. These files log visitors when they visit websites. All hosting companies do this as a part of hosting services’ analytics. The information collected by log files include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date and time stamp, referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks. These are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable. The purpose of the information is for analyzing trends, administering the site, tracking users’ movement on the website, and gathering demographic information.
Third Party Privacy Policies
Third-party ad servers or ad networks use technologies like cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons that are used in their respective advertisements and links that appear on the Firm’s website, which are sent directly to the users’ browser. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. These technologies are used to measure the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns and/or to personalize the advertising content that you see on websites that you visit. Note that the Firm has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.
The Firm’s Privacy Policy does not apply to other advertisers or websites. Thus, we are advising you to consult the respective Privacy Policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information. It may include their practices and instructions about how to opt-out of certain options.
You can choose to disable cookies through your individual browser options. To learn more detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers, it can be found at the browsers’ respective websites.
Changes
We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time without advance notice. Should any new policy go into effect, the Firm will post it on this website.
Contact Us
If you have additional questions or require more information about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact our IT specialist at cschmidt@herrlingclark.com.