Communicating With Us

Garfinkle Biderman LLP (GB LLP) encourages your inquiries. Please be aware that accessing our website or contacting our lawyers using email does not create a lawyer-client relationship or impose any obligation on GB LLP. Moreover, due to the nature of the Internet, any electronic communication between us may not be secure and, unless you are already a client of our firm, will not be privileged and may be disclosed to other persons. Therefore, you should not send us any email that contains confidential or sensitive information.

Privacy Rights

GB LLP recognizes 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. We do not collect personal information through our website.

This Privacy Policy outlines how we manage your personal information and safeguard your privacy.

Since January 1, 2004, all Ontario organizations engaged in commercial activities must comply with the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, also known as PIPEDA.

“Personal Information” means information about an identifiable individual but does not include the name, title, business address, or telephone number of any employee of any organization.

Personal Information

We collect personal information from our clients to provide legal services to you, in accordance with your instructions. We may collect personal information directly from you at the start of a retainer, or in the course of our representation.

Consent

Consent for the collection, use and/or disclosure of personal information may be obtained orally or in writing and may be expressly given or implied. We may also, from time to time and when we are providing services to you, ask for your written consent for the use and disclosure of specific personal information. In determining how we obtain your consent, we will take into account the sensitivity of personal information that we are collecting, using and/or disclosing.

The choice to provide GB LLP with personal information is always up to you. Upon request, we will explain your options of refusing or withdrawing consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information and will record and respect your written choices. Any refusal or withdrawal of consent is subject to overriding legal requirements or commitments.

Security Of Personal Information

GB LLP takes all reasonable precautions to ensure that your personal information is kept safe from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure.

Because GB LLP is responsible for any personal information under its control, including personal information that GB LLP may transfer to a third party for processing, we will use contractual or other means to provide a comparable level of privacy protection when personal information is being processed by a third party on GB LLP’s behalf.

Access To Personal Information

You may request access to any personal information we hold about you. Summary information is available on written request. More detailed requests that require archive retrieval or copying costs may be subject to reasonable reimbursement for our actual costs.

Your rights to access your personal information are not absolute. We may deny access when:

• Denial of access is required or authorized 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);
• Information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings against you;
• Granting you access would have an unreasonable impact on other people’s privacy;
• To do so would prejudice negotiations with you;
• To protect our firm’s rights and property; or
• The request is frivolous or vexatious.

If we deny your request for access, or refuse a request to correct information, we will explain why we are doing so.

GB LLP does not use your Social Insurance Number as a way of identifying or organizing the information we hold about you, but we may need it for income tax reporting purposes and/or if we hold or invest funds for you in our trust accounts.

We retain your personal information for as long as is reasonably necessary for us to complete our dealings with you, or as may be required by law or for purpose of compliance with our professional obligations.

Website

The material provided on this website is not legal advice and is only of general nature. While GB LLP has taken reasonable efforts to ensure the information contained herein is accurate, it does not warrant or guarantee that this information is correct or up-to-date.

Additionally, GB LLP does not provide any warranties with respect to any links to other websites that may be contained herein, which are included for your convenience only and are not intended to be referrals or endorsements of the linked entities. Links to other sites are not governed by this privacy policy.

GB LLP is committed to your privacy. A visitor to our website is not required to provide any individually identifiable information, such as a name or address, nor do we collect such information passively by electronic means. However, we may collect general information about visitors, such as their IP addresses and times of visit, and use this information to improve our website. GB LLP does not provide any information to third parties regarding individual visitors to the website. While reasonable precautions are taken to protect all information that is given to GB LLP, due to the nature of the Internet, GB LLP does not guarantee that there will not be any unauthorized access to your information.

We request that you not use any of the information on this website, including the email addresses that are available herein, to transmit, distribute or facilitate the distribution of unsolicited bulk email or other advertisements to GB LLP or any of the partners or employees.

Changes To This Privacy Policy

Since GB LLP periodically reviews all of its policies and procedures, we may change our Privacy Policy from time to time. Please refer to our website for updates.