PRIVACY POLICY

Lake & Elliss  LLP (“L&E”) 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. This Privacy Policy outlines how we manage your personal information and safeguard your privacy.

YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS

Effective January 1, 2004, all businesses engaged in commercial activities must comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information, which it incorporates. These obligations extend to lawyers and law firms, including L&E. The Act gives you rights concerning the privacy of your personal information.

In addition, our obligations as legal professionals are governed, in part, by the Rules of Professional Conduct that govern each of our professionals as members of the Law Society of Upper Canada. These obligations apply to all professionals, employees, contractors and agents who provide services in connection with our delivery of legal services to our clients.

L&E is responsible for the personal information we collect and hold. To ensure this accountability, we have developed this policy, and trained our lawyers and support staff about our policies and practices.

COLLECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

Personal information is any information that identifies you, or by which your identity could be deduced. If we did not collect and use your personal information we could not provide you with legal services.

We collect information only by lawful and fair means and not in an unreasonably intrusive way. Typically, and wherever possible, we collect your personal information directly from you, at the start of a retainer and in the course of our representation.

In some cases, we shall ask you to specifically consent, either in writing or orally, if we collect, use, or disclose your personal information. In many cases, however, your consent will be implied through your conduct with us.

Your provision of personal information to L&E means that you consent and agree that we may collect, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, we request that you kindly refrain from providing any personal information to us, although this may limit our ability to provide certain services to you that require our use and disclosure of your personal information.

USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We use your personal information to provide legal advice and services to you, to administer our client (time and billing) databases and to include you in any direct marketing activities. If you tell us that you no longer wish to receive information about our services, or about new developments in the law, we will not send any further material.

L&E does not disclose your personal information to any third party to enable them to market their products and services. For example, we do not provide our client mailing lists to other law firms or organizations.

DISCLOSURE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Under certain circumstances, L&E may need to disclose your personal information. Such circumstances may include:

• when we are required or authorized by law to do so, for example if a court issues a subpoena;
• when you have consented to the disclosure;
• when the legal services we are providing to you require us give your information to third parties (for example a lender in a real estate mortgage transaction) 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) and the third party is bound by our privacy policy;
• if we engage expert witnesses on your behalf;
• if we retain other law firms in other jurisdictions, on your behalf; or
• if the information is already publicly known.

UPDATING YOUR INFORMATION

Since we use your personal information to provide legal services to you, it is important that the information be accurate and up-to-date.

If during the course of the retainer, any of your information changes, please inform us so that we can make any necessary changes.

SECURITY OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

L&E takes all reasonable precautions to ensure that your personal information is kept safe from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure. Among the steps taken to protect your information are:

• premises security;
• restricted file access to personal information;
• technological safeguards such as security software and firewalls to prevent unauthorized computer access;
• internal password and security policies.

ACCESS TO YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

CORRECTING ERRORS

If L&E holds information about you and you can establish that it is not accurate, complete and up-to-date, L&E will take reasonable steps to correct it.

CAN I BE DENIED ACCESS TO MY PERSONAL INFORMATION?

CAN I REQUEST ANONYMITY?

Whenever it is legal and practicable, we may offer the opportunity to deal with general inquiries without providing your name (for example, by accessing general information on our website). The Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (Canada) requires us to confirm the identity of all new clients. It may also require us disclose information to FINTRAC in relation to certain large cash transactions.

CREDIT BUREAUS

To help us make credit decisions about clients, prevent fraud, check the identity of new clients and prevent money-laundering, we may on occasion, request information about you from the files of consumer reporting agencies.

COMMUNICATING WITH US

You should be aware that e-mail is not a completely secure medium, and you should be aware of this when contacting us to send personal or confidential information.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

Since L&E regularly reviews all of its policies and procedures, we may change our Privacy Policy from time to time.

REQUESTS FOR ACCESS

If you have any questions, or wish to access your personal information, please write to our Privacy Contact at:

Devry Smith Frank LLP
95 Barber Greene Road
Suite 100
Toronto, Ontario M3C 3E9

Attention: Lawrence Hansen

If you are not satisfied with our response, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada can be reached at:

112 Kent Street,
Ottawa Ontario,
K1A 1H3

1-800-282-1376

EMPLOYMENT INQUIRIES

If you apply to L&E for a job, we need to consider your personal information as part of our review process. We normally retain information from candidates after a decision has been made, unless you ask us not to retain the information. If we offer you a job, which you accept, the information will be retained in accordance with our privacy procedures for employee records.

WEB SITE

Our website (70.39.251.42/~temporaryurl) contains links to other sites, which may not be governed by this privacy policy. This privacy statement only applies to information collected by our web site. We are not responsible for the privacy practices and policies of third parties.

On our website, like most other commercial websites, we may monitor traffic patterns, site usage and related site information in order to optimise our web service. We may provide aggregated information to third parties, b