Your Privacy Is Important

We offer and provide taxation and other legal advice, services and information to a broad spectrum of clients. To that end we collect, use and disclose personal information as necessary in order to (i) offer and provide our clients and potential clients with these legal services and information, (ii) to comply with legal and professional  responsibilities and (iii) to manage our business. As lawyers, we have a professional obligation to keep confidential all information we obtain within a solicitor-client relationship.

The nature of any personal information that we collect and use will depend upon the information and services requested. However, subject to applicable law, such information may include:

  1. the name, address, e-mail address, contact details, nature of the client or potential client's legal issue(s), financial, credit, billing and account information, and other incidental information relating to the services which we provide;
  2. information relative to the client's legal issue, for example tax, financial, property ownership, family, and employment information, and any other information that our clients provide to us when they  instruct us to act for them;
  3. information about individuals we collect in the course of acting for clients, including personal information about employees of clients, referrals, adverse parties and parties with parallel interests, other legal counsel, accountants, valuators, mediators and arbitrators, witnesses and potential witnesses, expert witnesses and consultants;
  4. other information we may collect with the client's consent or as permitted or required by law.

We use this information:

  1. to assess whether we can act for a potential client, including to avoid conflicts of interest;
  2. to offer and provide legal information and services to the client;
  3. to communicate with clients regarding the services that they request and to respond to their inquiries;
  4. to administer our client time and billing databases, and issue and collect accounts;
  5. to provide clients with material on our services and developments in the law;
  6. to manage and administer our business, including to avoid negligence and protect our clients and us against error and fraud;
  7. to fulfil our legal and professional obligations; and
  8. as permitted or required by law or for purposes for which the client's consent is obtained.

We may disclose the personal information we collect about clients and others to third parties, including:

  1. where the legal services we are providing to the client requires us to disclose the client's personal information to third parties;
  2. where we are required or authorized by law to do so;
  3. where we engage an expert or consultant on the client's behalf;
  4. where we retain another law firm or agent to act or assist us in acting on the client's behalf;
  5. where it is necessary to collect fees, for instance to a financial institution or collection agent;
  6. to governmental authorities and other regulatory bodies;
  7. where clients have instructed us to disclose their personal information to a third party for a specific purpose;
  8. where we reasonably believe that a third party requesting client information is the client's agent; and
  9. where the client has consented or as permitted or required by law.

Except for personal information which a client discloses to us via email, we do not collect personal information about visitors to our website (www.ioplaw.ca).  For your convenience, we may offer links from our website to other websites maintained by others. However, we are not responsible for, nor do we accept any liability for, the content of those websites or for the collection, use and disclosure of such visitor's personal information by persons who maintain such other websites Visitors should consult the privacy policies of those persons who maintain the other websites before providing any personal information to them.

We reserve the right to change this privacy statement at any time. Accordingly visitors should review this privacy statement from time to time to ensure that they are aware of and accept any changes made.