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Privacy notice.

This notice explains what personal information Ellery Kowal LLP collects through this website and when you contact us, how we use it, and the choices you have. It does not cover information we receive while representing a client, which is governed by our engagement letter and our professional duties of confidentiality.

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1Who we are

Ellery Kowal LLP is a law firm at 224 S. LaSalle Street, 31st Floor, Chicago, IL 60604. For questions about this notice or your information, write to privacy@ellerykowal.com or to the address above, marked for the attention of the Privacy Officer.

2Information we collect

We collect information you give us, and a limited amount of technical information collected automatically.

  • Conflict-check requests: your name, company, email address and phone number, the type of matter, the names of other parties involved and whether there is a deadline.
  • Client alerts: your email address and the topics you choose.
  • Calls, emails and letters: whatever you choose to tell us, and records of when we were in contact.
  • Technical information: our hosting provider records server logs, including IP address, browser type, the pages requested and the time of the request, for security and to keep the site working.

This website does not use advertising or analytics cookies. It stores a small amount of information in your browser only where needed for the site to work. If that changes, we will update this notice and ask for your consent where the law requires it.

3Information about other people

A conflict check requires the names of other people and companies involved in your matter. We use those names only to check whether we can act for you, and we keep them in our conflicts records so that we can meet our professional obligations in future matters.

4How we use information

  • To check for conflicts of interest and decide whether we can act for you.
  • To reply to you, arrange a call and, if you become a client, to provide legal services under a written engagement letter.
  • To send client alerts you have asked for. Every alert includes a link to unsubscribe.
  • To keep the website and our systems secure, and to investigate misuse.
  • To meet our legal and professional obligations, including record-keeping rules that apply to lawyers.

We do not use your information for automated decision-making, and we do not sell it or share it for targeted advertising.

5Confidentiality before you are a client

Until we have confirmed that we can act for you and you have signed an engagement letter, information you send us may not be protected by the attorney–client privilege. Please do not send confidential details in a conflict-check request or a first email. See our legal notice for more.

6Who we share it with

We share personal information only as needed for the purposes above:

  • Service providers who host this website, deliver email and run our practice-management and document systems, under contracts that require them to protect it and use it only on our instructions.
  • Courts, opposing counsel, experts and other parties, when that is necessary to represent a client and the client has authorized it.
  • Regulators, law enforcement or others when the law requires it, or to protect our rights or the safety of others.
  • A successor firm, if our practice is ever combined with or transferred to another firm, subject to our professional obligations.

7How long we keep it

We keep conflict-check records for as long as we need them to identify conflicts of interest, which in practice is for the life of our records system. Client-alert subscriptions are kept until you unsubscribe. Client files are kept for at least seven years after a matter closes, unless the law or the engagement letter requires a different period. Server logs are deleted within ninety days.

8Security

We use administrative, technical and physical safeguards appropriate to a law firm, including encryption in transit, access controls and staff training. No system is completely secure, and email in particular can be intercepted, so please call us before sending anything sensitive.

9Your choices and rights

You may ask us to tell you what personal information we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete it, and you may unsubscribe from client alerts at any time. Depending on where you live, state privacy laws may give you further rights. To make a request, write to privacy@ellerykowal.com. We will confirm your identity before acting, and we will not treat you differently for making a request.

Some requests we cannot fully meet: for example, we must keep conflicts records and client files where our professional obligations require it. If that applies, we will explain why.

10Children

This website is intended for businesses and adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

12Changes to this notice

We will update this notice when our practices change and revise the date at the top. If a change is significant, we will say so on this page.

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