Astute Law Office

Privacy & Client Service Policies

How we collect, use and protect your personal information, and how we support accessibility and guard against fraud in your dealings with the Firm.

Questions about your information?

Astute Law Office, 55 Village Centre Place, Suite 200, Mississauga, ON L4Z1V9 · info@astutelawoffice.com

Privacy Policy

This privacy policy applies to Astute Law Office (“Astute”, “the Firm”) and explains how we collect, use, disclose and otherwise process personal information. Generally speaking, “personal information” is information about an identifiable individual, subject to more particular definitions or interpretations under applicable law. This privacy policy does not apply to personal information about employees, lawyers, or other temporary or permanent staff, consultants, volunteers or other individuals assigned to Astute (collectively, “Members of Astute”) or to any information that is not personal information as defined in or interpreted under applicable law.

Astute offers and provides legal services and information to a wide range of clients. The Firm collect, use, disclose and otherwise process personal information as necessary to offer and provide clients and potential clients with these legal services and information and generally to fulfill our professional legal responsibilities and manage our business. The Firm has a professional obligation to keep confidential all information we obtain within a lawyer-client relationship.

The Information the Firm Collect and How They Are Used

Clients, potential clients and others, generated in the course of our practice

The personal information the Firm collect in relation to clients and potential clients includes:

name, pronouns, address, email address, contact details, nature of the client or potential client's legal issue, financial, credit, billing and account information, and other incidental information relating to the services we provide;
information material to your legal issue, for example, financial, property ownership, family, employment, disciplinary, benefit or tax information, and any other information you give to us when you ask or instruct us to act for you;
legal issue or area of law of interest, for instance when you request receipt of materials concerning our services and developments in the law;
information about individuals it collects in the course of acting for clients, including personal information about employees of clients, referrals, adverse parties and parties with parallel interests, other counsel, mediators and arbitrators, witnesses and potential witnesses, expert witnesses and consultants; and
information about you contained in communications within Astute and between us and you, whether online or offline.

The Firm uses this information to:

assess whether the Firm can act for you, including to avoid conflicts of interest;
offer and provide legal information and services to you;
communicate with you regarding the services you request and to respond to your requests and inquiries;
administer our client time and billing databases, and issue and collect accounts;
provide you with material on our services and developments in the law;
develop and use our knowledge management and precedent systems and permit Members of the Firm to consult, for precedent purposes, documents that we have created on your behalf and that contain personal information;
manage and administer our business, including to avoid negligence and protect you and us against error and fraud; and
comply with legal, regulatory and self-regulatory requirements, and to fulfill our legal and professional obligations.

The Firm collects this information directly from clients and potential clients, or indirectly with their consent or where permitted by law. If you do not wish to receive materials about the Firm's services and legal developments, you may unsubscribe or ask the Firm not to contact you for these purposes.

Potential Members of Astute Law Office

If you apply for a position at Astute, we will collect the personal information contained in, and generated in relation to, your application package, in order to evaluate your application and assess whether to offer you a position at Astute Law Office. For candidates who are not offered or do not accept a position, the Firm normally retain this information for a reasonable period in the event that an appropriate position becomes available or that you reapply. If you accept a position at Astute Law Office, the information will be retained in accordance with the Firm's privacy procedures applicable to the personal information of Members of Astute Law Office.

Astute Law Office Alumni

The Firm collects and retain personal information about professionals who have formerly been Members of Astute Law Office (“Astute Alumni”), including name, contact details and employment status and history. The Firm uses this information to maintain a record of where Astute Alumni are subsequently employed or practising. If you wish, you may ask us not to retain this information or contact you for these purposes.

Guests of and visitors to Astute

Astute collects information about its guests and visitors. Specifically, visitors to the offices of Astute may be asked to provide their name, pronouns, address, telephone number and organization name. This information is retained by the Firm as long as necessary for security or emergency preparedness purposes. The Firm may also install video cameras in public-access areas on its premises and will post signs notifying individuals of the existence and purpose of any such cameras. The Firm uses the information we collect about guests of and visitors to enable us to act responsibly in the event of a health or other crisis or emergency and to enhance workplace security.

Agents, vendors, suppliers, expert witnesses and foreign associates

Astute may collect information about third-party agents, vendors, suppliers, expert witnesses and foreign associates (“Service Providers”) who provide goods, services and information to Astute. This information would include name and contact information, banking information and information about experience and qualifications. We collect this information directly from our Service Providers, or indirectly with their consent or where permitted by law. The Firm use this information to assess suitability for particular assignments; to contact you, where necessary, in relation to the goods, services and information you are providing to Astute; and to pay you for your services. The Firm may also use this information to provide you with material regarding our services or developments in the law. If you do not wish to receive materials about our services and legal developments, you may unsubscribe or ask the Firm not to contact you for these purposes.

How The Firm Collects Information About You

The Firm typically collect personal information directly from you or through our interaction with you. However, sometimes the Firm may obtain personal information about you from other sources. For example, in relation to clients, in addition to personal information that you provide, the Firm may collect personal information from:

a government agency or registry;
third parties, such as your real estate agent, your financial institution, your insurance company, or your employer; and
other law firms or agents who have acted for you in the past, where these parties have information relevant to the matter in which we are acting for you.

In relation to potential Members of Astute, in addition to personal information that you provide, we may collect personal information from:

the third parties you provide as references in support of your application; and
individuals involved in the evaluation and review process.

How The Firm Discloses and Shares Your Information

Astute discloses the personal information it collects about clients or other individuals it deals with to third parties where:

the legal services the Firm provides to you require that you give your personal information to third parties, such as a lender in a real estate mortgage transaction;
the Firm is required or authorized by law to do so, for example, where the rules of court require us to provide personal information to the opposite side and the court in a litigation matter or where a court issues a subpoena or order;
the Firm engage an expert or consultant on your behalf in a litigation matter;
the Firm retains another law firm or agent to act or assist in acting on your behalf;
it is necessary to collect fees, for instance, to a financial institution or collection agent;
necessary to comply with regulatory (including self-regulatory) requirements or requests from governmental authorities, for example, disclosure of personal information reasonably requested or required by governing bodies of the legal profession in the course of its oversight of our practice;
you have instructed the Firm to disclose your personal information to a third party for a designated purpose; and
the Firm reasonably believe a third party requesting your information is your agent.

The Firm may disclose personal information about Astute Alumni in order to provide an employment reference to a third party where you have requested the provision of the reference.

Service Providers. Astute may also transfer your personal information to Service Providers, including our affiliates, hired to administer or provide products, services or information on our behalf. The Firm require our Service Providers to use your personal information only as necessary to perform the services we have hired them to provide. Most of our Service Providers process personal information in Canada or the EEA. On occasion, the Firm may use service providers that process personal information in the United States or other countries that do not offer the same legal protections for personal information as Canada or the EEA. In such cases, the Firm will ensure that appropriate contractual protections are in place, as required by applicable laws. If you have any questions about the Firm's use of Service Providers, including outside of Québec, Canada or the EEA, please contact us.

Business Transactions. The Firm may also use and disclose personal information to parties connected with the proposed or actual financing, insuring, sale or other disposal of all or part of our business or assets, for purposes connected to evaluating and performing the transaction. These purposes may include determining whether to proceed with the transaction or business relationship, or fulfilling any records or other reporting requirements to those parties. Where applicable, the Firm will take steps to require that such parties treat your personal information in accordance with this privacy policy and use and disclose it only for the purposes for which it was collected, including to provide the services or information that Astute would otherwise provide to you and generally to carry on Astute business.

The Firm's Website

As most websites do, the Firm uses automatic data collection technologies to track usage patterns on our website. Each time you visit the website, the Firm's server records your Internet service provider, IP address, the date and time of your visit, the pages you visit and the documents downloaded, the searches you performed, and the referring URLs you came from. We use this information to optimize our website service.

For your convenience, we may offer links from our website to other websites. However, Astute is not responsible for, nor does it accept any liability for, the personal information collection, use and disclosure practices of other entities to which the Firm's website may link. You should consult the privacy policies of these other entities before providing any personal information on their websites.

Legal Basis for Processing

In connection with the Firm's commercial activities outside of the European Economic Area (“EEA”), the Firm processes personal information with consent except where otherwise permitted or required by law. For example, the Firm may be permitted to collect, use or disclose personal information without consent in order to collect a debt you owe to the Firm, to comply with a subpoena or court order, or to comply with the rules of court regarding the production of records. Your consent may be express or implied, depending on the circumstances and the sensitivity of the personal information in question. For example, in most cases, a client's consent to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information by Astute may be implied by the fact that the client has engaged Astute to provide legal services, where the collection, use and disclosure of personal information relates to the performance of those services by Astute.

In connection with our commercial activities in the EEA, the Firm relies on one of the following legal grounds (as appropriate) to process personal information:

To enter and perform a contract with you or to perform any steps you require from the Firm before entering into a contract.
To pursue our legitimate business interests in establishing, managing or concluding our business relationship with you.
Where you have specifically consented to the Firm processing your personal information.
To comply with the Firm's legal obligations and establish, exercise or defend the Firm's legal rights.

Where personal information is processed with consent, you may (subject to contractual and legal restrictions) refuse to provide your consent, or choose to withdraw your consent, to the Firm's processing of your personal information by contacting the Firm at info@astutelawoffice.com. Note that if you refuse to consent, or withdraw your consent, to certain processing of your personal information, we may not be able to provide certain of our services.

Security and Retention

Astute has implemented reasonable physical, organizational and technological security measures to safeguard the personal information in its custody or control. These include safeguards reasonable for the sensitivity, use, quantity, and storage medium of the personal information to protect against loss or theft, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use, or modification. Authorized Members of Astute, agents and mandatories have access to your personal information for the performance of their duties.

You can generally visit the Astute website without providing any personal information. However, given that electronically submitted data is not 100 per cent secure, the Firm make no warranties as to the security of any such personal information that you submit, which you do at your own risk.

Personal information is retained on the Firm's servers or those of its Service Providers as described in this privacy policy, and otherwise in accordance with our record retention policies. The Firm's record retention periods are established taking into account requirements of privacy laws, the purposes for which the information was collected, legal and regulatory requirements to retain the information for minimum periods, limitation periods for taking legal action, and our business purposes.

Access, Correction and Other Rights

The Firm maintain a file of your personal information for the purposes described in this privacy policy. This file is accessible at Astute Law Office, 55 Village Centre Place, Suite 200, Mississauga, ON L4Z1V9. If you wish to request access to, or correction of, your personal information in custody or control of Astute, please make your request in writing to the Firm at the address below. The Firm may need to verify your identity before searching for or providing you with personal information. In some circumstances, the Firm may not provide access to your personal information, for example, if it contains the personal information of other persons, if it constitutes confidential commercial information, if it is protected by solicitor-client privilege, or if it is otherwise not properly the subject of an access request.

Since the Firm predominantly use personal information to provide legal services, it is important that the information be accurate and up to date. Please inform the Firm as soon as possible of any changes to your personal information.

Depending on your jurisdiction, you may also have the right, in specified circumstances, to object to the Firm's use of your personal information, to request the deletion of your personal information or restrict its use, to request a copy of the information you have provided to the Firm to use for your own purposes, or to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority. If you have any questions about these rights, or you would like to exercise any of them, please contact us.

Inquiries and Complaints

If you have any questions, inquiries or complaints about the Firm's personal information practices, please contact the Firm at Astute Law Office, 55 Village Centre Place, Suite 200, Mississauga, ON L4Z1V9 or via email at info@astutelawoffice.com.

Changes to This Policy

This privacy policy is effective as of the date last posted. Astute reserves the right to change this privacy policy at any time. The Firm will take reasonable steps to advise you of any changes to this privacy policy, including by posting the revised policy on the Firm's website. It is recommended that you review this privacy policy from time to time to obtain the current version. You may contact us at the address, email address or telephone number above to obtain a current copy of this privacy policy.

Astute Accessible Client Service Policy

Astute Law Office (“Astute” or the “Firm”) is committed to ensuring that we provide services to our clients and client representatives with disabilities in an accessible manner, and in a way that respects the dignity and independence of those individuals. The Firm's commitment to ensuring accessible service is part of our overall objectives of providing excellent client service and promoting diversity.

This Astute Accessible Client Service Policy (the “Policy”) establishes policies, practices and procedures relating to the Firm's provision of services to clients, client representatives and other third parties. Astute may implement additional policies, practices and/or procedures in this regard, including those contained in client service training materials. However, all such additional policies, practices and procedures will be consistent with the Policy.

Accessibility Plan Pursuant to the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005

This Accessibility Plan for Astute Law Office (“Astute”) outlines the policies, practices and actions that Astute will implement in its Ontario operations over a multi-year period (the “Plan”) to improve accessibility for individuals with disabilities. The Plan also incorporates and references Astute's existing accessibility policies and practices in an effort to streamline the Firm's efforts in achieving its accessibility goals, and to comply with all applicable laws.

Fraud Notice

Fraudulent / Unauthorized Communications Using the Name of Astute Law Office

Watch for impersonation attempts sent from addresses that are not genuinely ours.

Fraudulent Communications and Impersonations

If you received an email from misleading email addresses not ending with “@astutelawoffice.com”, we suggest that you do not respond, click on any links or open attachments to the email, or engage with the sender. If you have actually lost any money as a result of this communication, please report the crime to your local police.

Canadian residents may report the attempted fraud to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
U.S. residents may report the attempted fraud to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Centre.
U.K. residents may report the attempted fraud to Action Fraud.

False Claims of Association With Astute Law Office

If you wish to communicate with an Astute Law Office lawyer, please contact them directly through info@astutelawoffice.com.