Privacy Policy & Notice
This is the privacy notice of Scherini Lawyers. In this Notice, “we”, “our”, or “us” refers to Scherini Lawyers.
You may also wish to peruse our Disclaimer and Terms & Conditions.
This privacy policy explains how we manage personal information about individuals other than employees. Paragraph 32 explains the position of employees and includes some information for partners, affiliates, and our contractors.
This privacy notice aims to inform you about how we collect and handle any information that we collect from you, or that you provide to us. It covers both information that could identify you (“personal information”) and information that could not.
Good information privacy practices are an everyday part of the way Scherini Lawyers runs its practice. We have developed a privacy culture within the firm by promoting sound privacy practices, procedures, and systems for the management of personal information in accordance with any laws we fall within.
We are legal practitioners with strict professional obligations to our clients and the courts, including obligations of confidentiality. Also, our clients will often have legal professional privilege over records and communications in connection with our services.
We are extremely concerned to protect your privacy and confidentiality. We understand that all users of our website and those who contact our firm are quite rightly concerned to know that their data will not be used for any purpose unintended by them and will not accidentally fall into the hands of a third party. Our policy is both specific and strict. It complies with Australian law.
We regret that if there are one or more points below with which you are not happy, your only recourse is to leave our website immediately.
Except as set out below, we do not share, sell, or disclose to a third party, any personally identifiable information collected at this site or from your contact with our firm.
Here is a list of the information we collect from you, either through our website or because you give it to us in some other way, and why it is necessary to collect it:
1. Business and personal information
‘Personal information’ is information or opinion (in recorded form or otherwise) about an identified, or reasonably identifiable, individual. This includes basic identification and contact information, such as your name, date of birth, and contact details, and also includes all information given to us in the course of your business and ours and dealings with us, such as information you give us in your capacity as our client. ‘Sensitive information’ is a sub-set of personal information and includes information or opinions about your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, memberships, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, health, or criminal record. We undertake to preserve the confidentiality of the information and of the terms of our relationship. It is not used for any other purpose. We expect you to reciprocate this policy. This information is used:- to provide you with our services;
- to provide you with the services that you request;
- To provide you with our communications;
- To provide you with events or seminars;
- To obtain the services of third-party service providers as part of providing our services;
- To manage and improve our legal services and client relationships;
- Where we are otherwise required or authorized to do so by law; and
- for verifying your identity for security purposes;
- information that does not identify any individual may be used in a general way by us or third parties, to provide class information, for example relating to demographics or usage of a particular page or service.
- Otherwise, to run our business.
2. Third parties, collection, and storage of your information
When we obtain information from you specifically to enable you to buy a service offered on our website by some other person such as a barrister or another contractor, we assume that in giving us your information, you are also giving us permission to pass it to the relevant person. Where possible, we collect your personal information directly from you during the course of our business relationship. Where it is not practicable or reasonable to collect your information directly from you, we may collect it from other sources. Information is often collected from our clients but may also be collected from sources such as your employer or colleagues, government registers, and online publications: We usually collect and hold the following kinds of personal information:- Information about people’s dealings with us or our clients;
- Name, address, job title, professional membership, and contact information;
- If you are a client or potential client, information about your organization and your role, information on other employees and management in your organization, payment information, and information about your legal matters;
- Interests in areas of legal practice or events; and
- Information provided by or on behalf of applicants for a role with us.
3. Disclosures
Subject to our professional obligations to our clients, we may disclose personal information:- To other entities (such as barristers, experts and/or valuers we have engaged, and other parties involved in dispute resolution) as part of providing our services to our clients;
- To third-party service providers, agents, and contractors such as imaging firms, marketing firms, and couriers;
- To our professional advisers and insurers;
- To regulators, government agencies, and law enforcement agencies or as otherwise required or authorized by law; and
- To others where you have provided your consent for us to do so.
4. Your domain name and e-mail address
This information is recognized by our servers and the pages that you visit are recorded. We shall not under any circumstances, divulge your e-mail address to any person who is not an employee or contractor of ours and who does not need to know, either generally or specifically. This information is used:- to correspond with you or deal with you as you expect;
- in a collective way not referable to any particular individual, for the purpose of quality control and improvement of our website;
- to send you news about the services for which you have signed up;
- to tell you about other of our services or services of sister websites.
5. Information you post on or via our website
Information you send to us by posting to a forum or blog or in your advertisement is stored on our servers. We do not specifically use that information except to allow it to be read, but you will see in our terms and conditions that we reserve a right to use it in any way we decide.6. Website usage information
We may use software embedded in our website (such as JavaScript) to collect information about pages you view and how you have reached them, what you do when you visit a page, the length of time you remain on the page, and how we perform in providing content to you.7. Financial information relating to your credit cards
This information is never taken by us either through our website or otherwise unless you provide it to us directly for some intended purpose we will only use it as directed and prefer not to store such information. At the point of payment for any links to payment portals, you are transferred to a secure page on the website of a reputable payment service provider. That page may be dressed in our “livery”, but it is not controlled by us. Our staff and contractors never have access to it.8. Note on padlock symbols and other trust marks
Many companies offer certification and an icon or other small graphic to prove to website visitors that the site is safe. Some certify to a high level of safety. Others are more concerned to take our money than to provide a useful service. We do not handle information about your credit card so do not subscribe to any such service.9. Financial information about your direct debit
When you have agreed to set up a direct debit arrangement, the information you have given to us is passed to our own bank for processing according to our instructions. We will only keep a copy if legally required.10. Credit reference
To assist in combating fraud, we may share information with credit reference agencies, so far as it relates to clients or customers who instruct their credit card issuer to cancel payment to us without having first provided an acceptable reason to us and given us the opportunity to respond.11. Information we obtain from third parties
Although we do not disclose your personal information to any third party (except as set out in this notice), we do receive data that is indirectly made up of your personal information, from software services such as Google Analytics and others. No such information is identifiable to you.12. Content you provide to us with a view to being used by third-party
If you provide information to us with a view to it being read, copied, downloaded, or used by other people, we accept no responsibility for what that third party may do with it. It is up to you to satisfy yourself about the privacy level of every person who might see your information. If it is available to the World, neither we nor you have any control whatsoever as to how it is used.13. Cookies
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer’s hard drive through your web browser when you visit any website. They are widely used to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the website. Like all other users of cookies, we may request the return of information from your computer when your browser requests a web page from our server. Cookies enable our web server to identify you to us and to track your actions and the pages you visit while you use our website. The cookies we use may last for a single visit to our website (they are deleted from your computer when you close your browser) or may remain on your computer until you delete them or until a defined period of time has passed. Although your browser software enables you to disable cookies, we recommend that you allow the use of cookies in order to take advantage of the features of our website that rely on their use. If you prevent their use, you will not be able to use all the functionality of our website. Here are the ways we use cookies:- to record whether you have accepted the use of cookies on our website. This is solely to comply with the law. If you have chosen not to accept cookies, we will not use cookies for your visit, but unfortunately, our website will not work well for you;
- to allow essential parts of our website to operate for you;
- to operate our content management system;
- to operate the online notification form – the form that you use to contact us for any reason. This cookie is set on your arrival at our website and deleted when you close your browser;
- to enhance security on our contact form. It is set for use only through the contact form. This cookie is deleted when you close your browser;
- to collect information about how visitors use our website. We use the information to improve your experience of our website and enable us to increase sales. This cookie collects information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the website, where visitors have come to the website from, and the pages they visited;
- to record that a user has viewed a webcast. It collects information in an anonymous form. This cookie expires when you close your browser;
- to record your activity during a webcast. An example is as to whether you have asked a question or provided an opinion by ticking a box. This information is retained so that we can serve your information to you when you return to the website. This cookie will record an anonymous ID for each user, but it will not use the information for any other purpose. This cookie will usually last for 3 months (but may vary) when it will be deleted automatically;
- to store your personal information so that you do not have to provide it afresh when you visit the site next time. This cookie will last for 90 days (but may vary);
- to enable you to watch videos we have placed on YouTube. YouTube will not store personally identifiable cookie information when you use YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode.
14. Calling our helpline
When you call our office, we collect Calling Line Identification (CLI) information through our phone carrier. We use this information to help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our office dealing with persons in contact with us.15. Sending a message to our office
When you send a message, we collect the data you have given to us in that message in order to obtain confirmation that you are entitled to receive the information and to provide you with the information you need. We record your request and our reply in order to increase the efficiency of our business/organization. We do not keep any personally identifiable information associated with your message, such as your name or email address.16. Complaints
When we receive a complaint, we record all the information you have given to us. We use that information to resolve your complaint. If your complaint reasonably requires us to contact some other person, we may decide to give to that other person some of the information contained in your complaint. We do this as infrequently as possible, but it is a matter of our sole discretion as to whether we do give information, and if we do, what that information is. We may also compile statistics showing information obtained from this source to assess the level of service we provide, but not in a way that could identify you or any other person. Complaints may be made here!17. Job application and employment
If you send us information in connection with a job application, we may keep it for up to three years in case we decide to contact you at a later date. If we employ you, we collect information about you and your work from time to time throughout the period of your employment. This information will be used only for purposes directly relevant to your employment. After your employment has ended, we will keep your file for six years before destroying or deleting it.18. Marketing
Where we have a business relationship with you, or you have consented, we may send legal updates or other communications to you. You may opt-out at any time if you no longer wish to receive our marketing information. You can make this request by using the contact details, or by ‘unsubscribing’ from our email marketing messages. We do not disclose your personal information (including your email address) to any third party for the purpose of allowing them to market their products or services to you.19. Re-marketing
We may use re-marketing from time to time. This involves Google or some other supplier placing a tag or marker on your website in order to be able to serve you an advert for our products/services when you visit some other website. You may opt out of this service at any time by instructing us.20. Data Quality
The accuracy of your personal information is important to us and is fundamental to providing you with proper legal services. We seek to ensure that the personal information we collect, use, and disclose is accurate, complete, up-to-date, and, in the case of use or disclosure, relevant.21. Data Security
We hold your personal information in paper-based and electronic files and we take stringent measures to protect that information from misuse, interference, and loss and from unauthorized access, modification, or disclosure. We have a broad range of security safeguards in place to protect your personal information, including that:- All electronic databases incorporate strict password access and virus and firewall protection procedures;
- Sensitive personal information is only accessible by designated staff bound by duties of confidentiality; and
- Physical and logical security measures are employed to deal with external threats and the possibility of internal ones.
22. Affiliate information
This is information given to us by you in your capacity as an affiliate of ours or a customer or client of ours. Such information is retained for business use only. We undertake to preserve the confidentiality of the information and of the terms of our relationship. It is not used for any other purpose. We expect any affiliate to agree to reciprocate this policy. As an exception to this, we have the right to disclose your first name and URL of your affiliate connection to other affiliates and to any other person or organization, on and off-site. The reason is solely to enable us to mention winners and others whose performance as an affiliate is in some way outstanding.23. Access
You may request access to the personal information we hold about you at any time, by using our contact details. We will promptly acknowledge your request for access and let you know when we will provide you with the requested information. If we refuse access, we will provide you with a written notice that sets out (unless the law allows us not to specify a reason) the reasons for the refusal and how you can complain about our refusal. We may recover our reasonable costs for giving access to your personal information. Please be aware that due to our professional obligations, we may not be able to confirm that we act for a particular client or whether we hold any information about any person at a particular time or at all.24. Correction
We seek to ensure that the personal information we hold is accurate, up-to-date, complete, and, in the case of use and disclosure, relevant. Where we believe that the information we hold is inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant, or misleading, we will take reasonable steps to correct that information and (if you ask and it is reasonable and practicable for us to do so) notify you that correction to third parties that may have received the incorrect information from us. If you believe that the information we hold about you should be corrected, you may also request that we do so, by using our contact details below. If we do not agree with the corrections you have requested, we are not obliged to alter your personal information. Instead, we will give you a written notice which sets out (unless the law allows us not to specify a reason) the reasons for our refusal and how you can complain about our refusal. You can also ask us to associate a statement with the relevant information that puts your view that it is inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant, or misleading. We will not charge you for making a correction request, for correcting your information, or for associating a statement with your information.25. Use of the site by children
We do not market to children, nor do we sell products or services for purchase by children. We do sell products and services for end use by children but for purchase by adults. If you are under 18, you may use our website only with consent from a parent or guardian.26. Disclosure to the Government and their agencies
We are subject to the law like everyone else. We may be required to give information to legal authorities if they so request or if they have the proper authorization such as a search warrant or court order.27. Compliance with the law
This privacy policy has been compiled so as to comply with the law of every jurisdiction in which we aim to do business. If you think it fails to satisfy the law of your country, we would like to hear from you, but ultimately it is your choice as to whether you wish to use our website.28. Review or update personally identifiable information
At any time you may review or update the personally identifiable information that we hold about you, by contacting us at the address below. To better safeguard your information, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections to your information.29. Removal of your information
If you wish us to remove personally identifiable information from our website, you may Contact Us30. Data may be processed outside Australia
Our website is hosted in Australia. We also use outsourced services in countries outside Australia from time to time in other aspects of our business. Accordingly, data obtained within Australia may be processed outside Australia and data obtained in any other country may be processed within or outside that country.31. Enquiries and Complaints procedure
- If you have a complaint about how we have collected or handled your personal information, please contact us. We will endeavour in the first instance to deal with your complaint and take action to resolve the matter.
- If your complaint cannot be resolved at the first instance, we will ask you to lodge a formal complaint in writing, explaining the circumstances of the matter that you are complaining about, how you believe your privacy has been interfered with, and how you believe your complaint should be resolved.
- We will acknowledge receipt of your formal complaint and indicate the timeframe that you can expect a response. We will endeavor to resolve the complaint as quickly as possible, but if the matter is complex and our investigation may take longer, we will let you know when we expect to provide our response.
