Stillman LLP recognises the importance of privacy and the sensitivity of personal information. As lawyers, we have a professional obligation to keep confidential all information we receive within a lawyer-client relationship. We are committed to protecting any personal information we hold. This privacy policy outlines how we manage your personal information and safeguard your privacy.
Your Privacy Rights
All businesses engaged in commercial activities must comply with the federally enacted Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the corresponding Provincial enactment, as well as the Personal Information Protection Act and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information. These obligations extend to lawyers and law firms, including Stillman LLP. These Acts give you rights concerning the privacy of your personal information.
Stillman LLP 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.
Stillman LLP’s Need for Personal Information
Stillman LLP provides legal services and products to a wide range of clients. In doing so, we produce direct marketing materials concerning our services and developments in the law.
Personal Information
Personal information is any information that identifies you or by which your identity could be deduced. If we did not collect and use your personal information, we could not provide you with legal services.
Consent and Purpose
In most cases when we collect, use or disclose your personal information, we shall inform you as to the purpose of this and ask you to consent. Normally, we ask for your consent in writing, but in some circumstances, your acceptance may be obtained orally. In certain circumstances, your consent may be implied through your conduct with us.
Collecting 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.
Sometimes we may obtain information about you from other sources, for example:
• 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 doctor
• Your banker
• Your accountant
Use of Your Personal Information
We use your personal information to provide legal advice and services to you, to administer our client time and billing databases and to include you in any direct marketing activities. If you tell us that you no longer wish to receive information about our services or about new developments in the law, we will not send any further material.
Stillman LLP 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 anyone, including other law firms.
Disclosure of Your Personal Information
Stillman LLP may ask for your consent to disclose your personal information.
In certain circumstances, however, Stillman LLP will disclose your personal information without your consent:
• When we are required or authorised by law to do so, for example, if a court issues a subpoena
• When the legal services we are providing to you requires us to 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
• When you are unable to be contacted, and it would be reasonable to believe you would have given consent
• 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 is accurate and up-to-date. If, during the course of the retainer, any of your information changes, please inform us, so that we can make any necessary changes.
Security of Personal Information
Stillman LLP takes all reasonable precautions to ensure that your personal information is kept safe from loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Among the steps taken to protect your information are:
• Premises security
• Restricted file access to personal information
• Deploying technological safeguards like security software and firewalls to prevent hacking or unauthorised computer access
• Internal password and security policies
Access to Your Personal Information
You may ask for access to any personal information we hold about you.
Summary information is available on request. More detailed requests, which require archive or other retrieval costs may be subject to our normal professional and disbursement fees.
Correcting Errors
If Stillman LLP holds information about you, and you can establish that it is not accurate, complete and up-to-date, Stillman LLP will take reasonable steps to correct it.
Denial of Access to Personal Information
Your rights to access your personal information are not absolute.
We may deny access when:
• Denial of access is required or authorised 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)
• When granting you access would have an unreasonable impact on other people’s privacy
• To protect our firm’s rights and property
• Where the request is frivolous or vexatious
If we deny your request for access to personal information or refuse a request to correct information, we shall explain why.
Stillman LLP does not use your Social Insurance Number as a way of identifying or organising the information we hold on you.
Communicating with Us
You should be aware that email 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 Stillman LLP 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 contact Erik Bruveris, our privacy contact, at:
Erik L. Bruveris
c/o Stillman LLP
17420 Stony Plain Road, Edmonton, AB, T5S 1K6
If you are not satisfied with our response, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada can be reached at:
112 Kent Street, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 1H3
1-800-828-1376
Employment Inquiries
If you apply to Stillman LLP for a job, we need to consider your personal information as part of our review process. We normally retain information from candidates after a decision has been made, unless you ask us not to retain the information. If we offer you a job, which you accept, the information will be retained in accordance with our privacy procedures for employee records.
Website
Our website may contain links to other sites which are not governed by this privacy policy. On our website, like most commercial websites, we may monitor traffic patterns, site usage and related site information in order to optimise our web service. We may provide aggregated information to third parties, but these statistics do not include any identifiable personal information.
