:: AUJ LAWYERS ::

The lawyers and staff at AUJ LAWYERS ("AUJ LAWYERS" or "we") recognize the importance of privacy and the sensitivity of personal information. As lawyers we have professional obligations regarding the confidentiality of information we receive from our clients within a lawyer-client relationship. We are committed to protecting personal information we hold in accordance with law. This Privacy Policy outlines how we manage personal information and safeguard privacy.

PERSONAL INFORMATION: Personal information means information about an identifiable individual, but does not include the name, title or business address or telephone number of an employee of an organization.

PERSONAL INFORMATION AT AUJ LAWYERS: AUJ LAWYERS provides legal services to a wide range of clients. In doing so, we often collect and use personal information. As well, AUJ LAWYERS sends to individuals information and marketing materials concerning developments in the law and its services.

COLLECTING PERSONAL INFORMATION: We collect personal information fairly and in accordance with the law. Generally, we collect your personal information directly from you. Such collection may be done at the start of our relationship or during the course of our representation or retainer.
Sometimes we may obtain information about you from other sources including, for example:

from a government agency or registry;
other professionals who serve you, such as your accountant;
other parties or witnesses in the context of litigation; and
other parties or participants in a commercial transaction.

CONSENT: In most cases, if we collect, use, or disclose your personal information, we will obtain your consent. Sometimes we will ask for your consent in writing, but in some cases, we may accept your oral consent. Sometimes your consent may be implied through your conduct with us or the nature of our retainer. Should you withdraw your consent, that may impact on our ability to serve you and to maintain our relationship.

USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION: We use your personal information to provide legal advice and services to you, to administer our client (time and billing) databases, to build and to maintain the firm's expertise and knowledge, and to include you in our information distribution and marketing activities. If you tell us that you no longer wish to receive information about developments in the law or our services, you can ask us not to send any further material.

DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION: AUJ LAWYERS does not disclose your personal information to third parties to enable them to market their products and services. Under certain circumstances AUJ LAWYERS may disclose your personal information. Some examples are:

when you have consented to the disclosure;
when we are required or authorized by law to do so, including, for example, if a court issues a warrant etc;
when the legal services we are providing to you requires us to give your information to third parties your consent will be implied, unless you tell us otherwise;
where it is necessary to collect fees or disbursements;
in the event of a merger by or growth of AUJ LAWYERS;
if we engage expert witnesses on your behalf; or
if we retain another law firm (such as, for example, law firms in other jurisdictions) on your behalf.

UPDATING YOUR INFORMATION: Since we use your personal information to provide legal services to you, it is important that the information be 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. We may also periodically inquire of you whether your personal information is accurate and up-to-date.

SECURING PERSONAL INFORMATION: AUJ LAWYERS takes precautions to ensure that your personal information is kept safe from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure. Among the steps taken to protect your personal information are:

premises security;
confidentiality policies as part of our professional obligations;
deploying technological safeguards like security software and firewalls to prevent unauthorized computer access or "hacking"; and
internal password and security policies.

E-MAIL: You should be aware that e-mail is not an entirely secure medium, and you should be aware of this when contacting us to send personal or confidential information.

ACCESSING PERSONAL INFORMATION: You may ask for access to personal information we hold about you.

Detailed requests which require archive or other retrieval costs may be subject to our normal professional and disbursement fees.
Your rights to access your personal information are not absolute. There are a number of situations where we may deny access. If we deny your request for access to, or refuse a request to correct personal information, we will provide a reason or reasons for doing so.

WEB SITE: Our website contains links to other sites, which are not governed by this Policy. On our website, like most other commercial websites, we may monitor traffic patterns, site usage and related site information in order to optimize our web service. We may provide aggregated information to third parties, but these statistics do not include any identifiable personal information.

AUJ LAWYERS does not use cookies nor does AUJ LAWYERS use any electronic means to automatically collect personal information from you or your computer; however, web servers used by AUJ LAWYERS will automatically collect IP addresses and we may view our web server IP log from time to time to prevent fraudulent acts and possible network attacks.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY: AUJ LAWYERS reviews all of its policies and procedures and we may change this Privacy Policy from time to time.