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Privacy Policy
At Only Family Matters, we recognize the importance of privacy and the sensitivity of personal information. The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act imposes a professional obligation upon lawyers to keep all information received within a lawyer-client relationship confidential.
At Only Family Matters, your personal information is collected in order to provide legal advice and services, to fulfill our own professional responsibilities and to manage our conflict checks.
Personal information is any information about an individual. This could include information such as age, identification numbers, income, ethnic origin, credit or banking information, employee records, medical records, and any information relevant to the issue for which this firm has been retained.
Personal information is collected in the normal course of client representation directly from the client or from sources other than the client: for example, government agencies or registries, employers, accountants or the client’s family physician. In most cases, we ask individuals to specifically consent, if we collect, use, or disclose their personal information where such collection, use and disclosure is such that would not be considered normal for a law firm’s representation of a client.
Permission may be expressed in writing or be implied and may be given to us verbally, electronically, or through an authorized representative.
This law firm does not disclose personal information to any third parties to enable them to market their products and services. This law firm takes all reasonable precautions to ensure that personal information is kept safe from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure.
Under certain circumstances, and/or as part of our retainer, this law firm will disclose your personal information, such as:
- When we are required or authorized by law.
- When you have consented to the disclosure, expressly or by implication, or the disclosure is necessary in the matter about which we have been retained.
- When our retainer requires us to give your information to third parties (for example to a doctor for the purpose of obtaining a medical opinion) your consent will be implied, unless you tell us otherwise.
- Where it is necessary to establish or collect fees.
- If we engage a third party to provide administrative services to us (like computer back-up services or archival file storage, or our auditors).
- If we engage expert witnesses on your behalf or retain other law firms on your behalf.
- If the information is already publicly known.
Clients may ask for access to any personal information. Summary information is available on request. More detailed requests which require archive or other retrieval costs may be subject to our normal professional and disbursement fees. An individual’s right to access their personal information is not absolute. We may deny access when, for example: denial of access is required or authorized by law (for example, when a record containing personal information is subject to a claim of legal professional privilege by one of our clients, or is allowed under relevant privacy legislation); information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings against the individual; granting access would have an unreasonable impact on other people’s privacy; to do so would prejudice negotiations; to protect our firm’s rights and property; or the request is frivolous or vexatious.
Some view Internet e-mail as less confidential than other more traditional forms of communication. If a client does not wish us to use Internet e-mail, please advise us in writing.
Disclaimer
This website is specifically intended to provide general information only for public use. It is not provided in the course of a solicitor-client relationship and does not constitute legal advice. You should not rely on this general information to replace advice from a lawyer about your particular case.
Kelly P. Edmonds
BA, LL B, AccFM (OAFM)
Family Law Lawyer and Mediator