PRIVACY STATEMENT AND COOKIE POLICY
As professionals engaged in the provision of legal services, The Law Office of Irnise F. Williams, LLC (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, law students, job applicants or others inside or outside the firm). It has always been and remains the firm’s policy 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.
This Privacy Statement and Cookie Policy (the “Statement”) is based on the privacy and data protection principles mandated by law. We apply it in light of our overarching obligations to comply with the law, preserve client confidentiality, and represent our clients as effectively as possible within the bounds of the law. This Statement is intended to summarize the Firm’s data protection practices generally and to advise our clients, interested law students, job applicants, website visitors, and other third parties about the firm’s privacy policies that may apply to them.
This Statement is also explicitly addressed to parties outside the firm who provide Personal Information to the firm or who visit or use the firm’s websites, our apps, our social media sites, our extranets, as well as email messages that we send to you that contain a link to this Statement (collectively, the “Internet Services”). This Statement also describes how the firm collects, processes, and discloses Personal Information in connection with providing legal services and Internet Services.
Collection and Use of Personal Information
The firm collects Personal Information while providing legal services to clients and as provided by visitors to its website or users of Internet Services. We may also collect Personal Information when you interact with us on social media sites, from other third parties, and automatically as described below in the cookie policy.
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 inquiries
- 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’s inability to provide the representation.
Confidentiality, Security, and Retention of Personal Information
Consistent with our professional obligations, the firm’s policy has always been 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 data processors’ reasonable and appropriate obligations.
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 initially collected and for the purposes described in the Statement and our applicable policies. For more details on our information practices, please refer to the “Contact Us” section below.
Disclosure and Transfer of Personal Information
We may disclose Personal Information to unrelated parties outside the firm in limited circumstances. Such circumstances include disclosures to our agents or data processors, or other contractors acting on our behalf and at our direction, subject to appropriate confidentiality, privacy, and information security commitments provided by the receiving party, or where we believe it necessary to provide a service which you have requested, or as permitted or required by law, or as otherwise authorized or directed by you. Consistent with our professional obligations, we may provide Personal Information to regulatory authorities and law enforcement officials in accordance with applicable law or when we otherwise believe in good faith that the provision of such information is required or permitted by law, such as in connection with the investigation or assertion of our legal defenses or for our compliance matters.
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 usually 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. The firm 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, the firm 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 visiting 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 Internet use unrelated to the firm. They do not identify you unless you 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 customize your experience, such as highlighting your recently viewed items, detecting and remembering your region and language preferences, and tracking 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 allow the third-party service provider to use Personal Information about the users of our Internet Services. The firm does use Google Analytics.
We use analytical cookies to analyze when and how you are using our website, through what domain you visit our website, and to improve the efficiency and quality of our website. Our firm uses the services of Google Analytics. Google Analytics measures website activity and general statistics, including demographic and interest data, and allows us to improve our service. The information gathered by Google Analytics is transferred to and used by Google on servers worldwide. Google Analytics maintains the same protections as described in their Privacy Policy, irrespective of your location. Google Analytics masks the last octet of the gathered IP addresses and uses SSL encryption to transfer the gathered information securely. For more information, we refer you to the Privacy Policy of Google.
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 Internet Services may function differently and not as well. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting to refuse cookies, our Internet Services will issue cookies when you log on to the firm’s Internet Services. For more information about managing 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 you use to opt out or block some or all cookies.
Do Not Track Signals
“Do Not Track” signals are options available on your browser to tell operators of websites that you do not wish to have your online activity tracked. Our websites operate no differently if these “Do Not Track” signals are enabled or disabled.
Children
To respect the privacy of minors, the firm does not knowingly collect, maintain, or process Personal Information submitted online via our Internet Services by anyone under 18. To the extent the firm collects Personal Information on minors in the context of one of the purposes mentioned in the Statement, the firm will only do so with the appropriate consent or as otherwise permitted under applicable laws.
Changes
We reserve the right to change this Statement without advance notice. Should any new policy go into effect for our Internet Services, the firm will post it on this website and relevant Internet Services.
Contact Us
If you have any questions relating to our use of your Personal Information, please contact us at irnise@iwilliamslaw.com