Privacy & Security
Privacy and Security Statement
This Privacy Policy applies to LegalMatch.com owned and operated by LegalMatch.com. This Privacy Policy describes how LegalMatch.com collects, uses, shares and secures the personal information you provide. It also describes your choices regarding use, access and correction of your personal information.
At LegalMatch.com, we are committed to protecting your privacy. It is also our goal to constantly improve our services to you and to keep up with rapidly changing technologies. In order to maximize our services to you, we use information collected about you while still protecting your privacy. Expecting future variations in our service, these policies are subject to change. If there are any modifications to these policies, we will post them on this page and notify you as described at the end of this policy.
If you have an unresolved privacy or data use concern that we have not addressed satisfactorily, please contact our U.S.-based third party dispute resolution provider (free of charge) at https://feedback-form.truste.com/watchdog/request.
I. Security Measures Concerning Your Personal Information
While transmission of information over the Internet cannot be guaranteed 100% secure, we make every effort to provide protection for the information that we collect about you. We, on our fully functional site, will use Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology in the transmission of logon identification and passwords. SSL technology provides advanced encryption tools that convert the information you input into code before it is sent to us. The encryption helps protect you and the information in your account.
In addition to SSL technology:
- Your personal information is password-protected. It is our policy to never sell traceable information about our users to third parties without user permission. See “Use of Information Collected” below.
- Advanced firewall technologies protect our database from outsiders.
- Your password and password reminder answers are kept encrypted at all times, so they cannot be decoded even if someone gains access to our database.
However, to avoid unauthorized use of your account by others, you must take steps to control your password. Further, this site contains various links to other Web sites. LegalMatch.com is not responsible for the privacy practices of those sites. You should not assume that other sites take similar steps in securing your information and should evaluate their privacy standards before using their systems.
II. Collection of Information
When you register with LegalMatch.com, we ask that you provide your name, email address, and zip code. If you are an attorney or other professional services provider, you will also be asked to provide your firm name, address, telephone number, state where you are licensed, and bar number. In the course of your use of the site, we may also request additional information from you. For example, if you are an attorney or other professional services provider, you will be asked to describe your areas of practice, experience, and education. If you are searching for an attorney, you will be asked to describe your situation so that attorneys can evaluate your legal needs and make a response to work for you.
As is true of most web sites, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information may include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and/or clickstream data.
We may combine this automatically collected log information with other information we collect about you. We do this to improve services we offer you, to improve marketing, analytics, or site functionality.
LegalMatch.com and its partners use cookies or similar technologies to analyze trends, administer the website, track users’ movements around the website, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. You can control the use of cookies at the individual browser level, but if you choose to disable cookies, it may limit your use of certain features or functions on our website or service.
We partner with a third party ad network to either display advertising on our Web site or to manage our advertising on other sites. Our ad network partner uses cookies and Web beacons to collect non-personally identifiable information about your activities on this and other Web sites to provide you targeted advertising based upon your interests. If you wish to not have this information used for the purpose of serving you targeted ads, you may opt-out by clicking Here. Please note this does not opt you out of being served advertising. You will continue to receive generic ads.
NOTE: Participant may also link to the NAI opt-out mechanism www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp
III. Use of Collected Information
The primary reason that LegalMatch collects information from its users is to match the right attorneys and professional services providers with the people and businesses that need them.
LegalMatch.com does not sell, trade, or rent your personal information to others without your permission. We will share your personal information with third parties only in the ways that are described in this privacy policy. We use your information to improve our marketing and promotional efforts, statistically analyze site usage, and improve our site’s content, offering, and layout. If you are an attorney member, we may use information we have about you as part of our ongoing marketing efforts, including but not limited to displaying your profile, practice and rating information publicly in association with LegalMatch. Your IP address may be used to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer our Web site, and for security needs. LegalMatch.com may provide aggregate statistics about our customers, sales, traffic patterns, and related site information to third-party vendors, but these statistics will include no personal identifying information.
We may use the information we collect to notify you about the status of your LegalMatch account, important functionality changes to our Web site, new LegalMatch.com services, and special offers we think you’ll find valuable. We may also contact you to verify your information or ask you about your experiences with our system.
Except for communications that relate directly to the service being provided, you may “opt out” of receiving communications from us. If you are seeking an attorney, required communications include (1) confirmation of your registration, (2) notification that attorneys have made responses to work on your case and (3) requests to determine which attorney (if any) you have retained. If you are an attorney, required communications may include (1) confirmation of your registration, (2) notification that your registration has been verified, (3) requests to determine which LegalMatch users have retained you and the amounts billed to or collected from them and (4) if you are enrolled in a payment plan, invoices. To opt out of non-required communications, check the appropriate boxes when you register or at any time by logging into the system and modifying your profile information. Users may also opt out of receiving non-required communications by replying to unsubscribe in the subject line in the email or by e-mailing us at UNSUBSCRIBE. Upon request LegalMatch.com will provide you with information about whether we hold any of your personal information. You may access, correct, or request deletion of your personal information by logging into your homepage and clicking on the “My Profile” link. We will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe. We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services. If you wish to cancel your account or request that we no longer use your information to provide you services contact us at privacyoptout@legalmatch.com. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.
When it is necessary to contact you, we use your email address and, in some situations your mailing address, phone or fax number. Note: LegalMatch.com will not ask you for your password if we contact you. Do not disclose your password if asked by a caller claiming to represent LegalMatch.com.
In order to achieve the benefits of the LegalMatch service, there are some situations in which personal information may be disclosed to third parties. These are:
- Service related disclosure: This Web site is designed to disclose certain limited information to connect attorneys with the people who need them. The users have full control over when and to whom personally identifying information is disclosed. Our service is designed specifically to keep initial exchanges of information between clients and attorneys anonymous. The limited information we disclose is described below.
- When a user posts a description of his or her legal matter, that information is reviewed only by attorneys, LegalMatch members or potential members and LegalMatch staff. The information is anonymous, meaning that the user’s personally identifying information is kept hidden unless the user chooses to release it. If the user chose to release personally identifying information, it will only be released to LegalMatch members and staff. If LegalMatch does not currently have member attorneys in the user’s area, the user may be asked to release case and personally identifying information to our affiliates who have interested attorneys.
- When an attorney responds to a posted matter, the response, the name and the contact information of the responding attorney is seen only by the specific client.
- If a user requests an attorney’s contact information, the user’s name and zip code may be revealed to that attorney for the purpose of verifying whether an attorney-client relationship was formed. The attorney is precluded from using this information to contact the user.
- The name of the user posting a rating and commentary for any attorney on this system may be released to that attorney, at the attorney’s request, for the purpose of replying to the rating.
- The name of the user notifying us that an attorney-client relationship was formed through our service may be released to that attorney for the purpose of verifying the relationship.
- Information regarding whether an attorney-client relationship was formed will be used only for our internal records and statistics. We will not disclose this information to other parties, unless we are required to do so by law.
- Except for the information referred to above, user’s contact information (i.e. address, telephone, fax, or email) is never revealed to attorneys or other users. User’s name and contact information may be revealed to LegalMatch sponsors if you elect to have the sponsor contact you. You will have the opportunity to review the sponsor’s privacy policy before selecting to share your information with the sponsor.
- Marketing Related Disclosure. If you are an attorney member, we may use any information, including personally identifiable information, contained in your LegalMatch profile and ratings in our ongoing marketing efforts to help develop and focus your practice. If you find our use of your identifiable information in association with our marketing efforts objectionable, you can opt out of future use by contacting us with your objections at privacyoptout@legalmatch.com.
- Affiliate Relationship Related Disclosure. If you are on a site that has an affiliate relationship with LegalMatch, this means that LegalMatch has a relationship with the Affiliate Site and that LegalMatch may share some of your registration information with that partner. For people and small business LegalMatch will share only your name, email address and zip code. For attorneys, LegalMatch may also share your firm name, address, telephone number, state of licensure, bar number and areas of practice.
We may provide your personal information to companies that provide services to help us with our business activities such as offering customer service. These companies are authorized to use your personal information only as necessary to provide these services to us.
LegalMatch.com may also develop business partnerships with other companies, as part of our service to users. These special business partnerships may include acquisitions by or mergers with other companies or special joint ventures that integrate our Web sites and services. You will be notified via email and/or a prominent notice on our Web site of any change in ownership or uses of your personal information, as well as any choices you may have regarding your personal information.
Whenever LegalMatch shares personally identifying information with a partner, we will do so with confidentiality and require use restrictions on the information.
Legal Related Disclosure
In certain situations, LegalMatch.com may be required to disclose personal data in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including law enforcement requirements. LegalMatch.com may release account information when we believe, in good faith, that such release is reasonably necessary to:
- comply with law
- enforce or apply the terms of any of our user agreements, or
- protect the rights, property or safety of LegalMatch.com, our users, or others, investigate fraud, or respond to a government request.
Blog/Forum
Our Web site offers publicly accessible blogs or community forums. You should be aware that any information you provide in these areas may be read, collected, and used by others who access them. To request removal of your personal information from our blog or community forum, contact us at privacyoptout@legalmatch.com. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your personal information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why.
Social Media Widgets
Our Web site includes Social Media Features, such as the Facebook Like button [and Widgets, such as the Share this button or interactive mini-programs that run on our site]. These Features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our site, and may set a cookie to enable the Feature to function properly. Social Media Features and Widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Site. Your interactions with these Features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.
IV. Consent and Changes to This Policy
By using our Web site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by LegalMatch.com. If we change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it. If we make any retroactive changes to how we disclose personally identifiable information to others, we will notify you by email and provide you at least ten (10) days to object to such disclosure and to delete your registration. If we make any material changes, we will notify you by email or by means of a notice on this site prior to the change becoming effective.
LegalMatch.com
395 Oyster Point Blvd. Suite 309
South San Francisco, CA 94080
privacyoptout@legalmatch.com