PRIVACY POLICY
Attorneys’ Liability Assurance Society
If you are a California resident, please click here for more information about your specific privacy rights.
At Attorneys’ Liability Assurance Society (“ALAS”), we take privacy seriously, and know that the privacy of our members is important to them. This Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) describes how ALAS treats the personal information that it collects. This Policy applies to all information collected through our website and any related services, marketing or events, including underwriting, claims management, loss prevention and risk management services (we refer to them collectively in this Policy as the “Services”). Please read this Policy carefully.
“Personal Information”
Throughout this Policy, we use the term “Personal Information” to describe information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household. Personal Information can include, but is not limited to, a name, an identification number, e-mail address or other unique identifier.
How We Collect Information
Information You or Your Law Firm Provide
If you register for an account through our website or if you or your law firm otherwise utilize our Services, we may collect information about you. In the ordinary course of providing our Services, you or your law firm may provide us with your Personal Information or that of others. We rely on the person providing this information to ALAS to obtain consent from other individuals for disclosing their information to us.
From Your Use of Our Website
We collect information about your visits and use of our website, including information through cookies.
From Providers and Third Parties
We work with and receive personal information from third parties such as service providers, vendors, contractors, and market researchers who provide products and services on our behalf. From time-to-time ALAS also may collect publicly available information about you.
What Personal Information We Collect
As described above, we collect data about you when you interact with our Services, including when you register for an account to make use of any of our web-based Services or register for ALAS events. If you do not provide Personal Information necessary for registration or when otherwise requested by ALAS, we may not be able to provide you with the full range of our Services, or with information about our Services. This Policy describes the Personal Information that ALAS may collect or may have collected:
- Identifiers, such as your name, social security number or tax ID number, postal address, email address, account username, IP address, phone number, or other similar unique identifiers. We may use this information to provide you with our Services, maintain your account, operate our business, and to otherwise communicate with you. We may provide this information to service providers and contractors, or to other third parties as required by law.
- Information Subject to Protection Under California Law, such as the Identifiers above, your signature, and our service providers may collect your bank account number. We use this information to provide you with our services, maintain your account, and to otherwise communicate with you. We may provide this information to service providers, or to other third parties as required by law.
- Sensitive Personal Information, such as your social security number, or tax identification number, racial or ethnic origin or specific geolocation. We do not use or disclose your sensitive personal information for any purpose other than as permitted by applicable law. We do not sell or share your sensitive personal information as those terms are used in the California Consumer Privacy Act. We may provide this information to service providers and contractors, and financial services entities or to other third parties as required by law.
- Geolocation Data. We collect this information to provide you with our services and to better tailor our services to you depending on your geographical region. We may provide this information to service providers, contractors, regulators or to other third parties as required by law.
- Education Information, including the schools from which you obtained undergraduate and law degrees. We may provide this information to service providers, contractors, regulators or to other third parties as required by law.
- Professional Information, including information relating to your role as a representative or agent of a company or business, such as your work title and contact information. We use this to conduct business with you or your employer and provide you with services and otherwise communicate with you. We may provide this information to service providers and contractors or with other third parties as required by law.
- Internet and Other Electronic Activity Information, such as your browsing history, search history, information about your interactions with our website or interact with our digital advertisements. We may provide this information to service providers, contractors or to other third parties as required by law. We may collect the following internet and other electronic activity data:
- Your Visits To our Website: we collect information about visits to our website, such as the number of visitors and the number of users that click on certain links or use certain services.
- Log Data: we receive information that is automatically recorded by our servers when you visit our website, including your Internet Protocol (“IP”) Address.
Cookies and Automatic Data Collection
A cookie is a small text file that can be sent to your browser and placed on your device that allows us to recognize and remember you. When you visit a page from our website, we may collect internet or networking information from you automatically through the use of cookies or other similar technology. This information may include your IP address, device identifiers, and information regarding your web browser type and version. You may adjust your internet browser to not accept or to delete our cookies at any time. However, if you set your browser to refuse cookies you may be unable to access certain parts of our website. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our website. You can use the methods described below to manage cookies. You must take these steps on each browser or device that you use. If you replace, change or upgrade your browser or device, or delete your cookies, you may need to use these opt-out tools again.
- Google Chrome
- Apple Safari
- Mozilla Firefox
- Microsoft Edge
If the browser you use is not listed above, please refer to your browser’s help menu for information on how to manage cookies.
How We Use Your Personal Information
We collect the Personal Information described above in order to:
- Provide our Services;
- Provide you with customer service and respond to your inquiries;
- Improve our Services and website;
- Ensure compliance with the terms of our Services and any other applicable rule or requirements;
- Protect our Services and prevent fraud;
- Comply with our legal obligations;
- Maintain the internal operations of ALAS; and
- Conduct market research or to provide you with information concerning our services.
We may use and share aggregated or deidentified data and information derived from Personal Information with other entities for the purpose of performing activities that may help us provide and improve our products and services. Where we deidentify or aggregate data, we take reasonable steps to ensure the information is not reidentified except as required by or pursuant to applicable law.
Disclosure of Information to Third Parties
We do not sell your Personal Information to any third parties. In the past 12 months, we may have disclosed your Personal Information to third parties under certain circumstances:
- With Your Permission. If you give us your permission, we may disclose your Personal Information to third parties.
- Service Providers. We may disclose your Personal Information to service providers as necessary for ALAS to provide you with the Services and for the operation of our website.
- Third-Party Services Provided to Members. In addition, we may disclose your Personal Information to third party service providers as necessary for you to access third party software products and services available to our member firms. Third party service providers with whom your Personal Information is disclosed are restricted from using your Personal Information for any use other than in connection with providing you services.
- Legal. The law may require us to use, disclose, or disclose your Personal Information with third parties in response to legal proceedings, in response to a request from a competent law enforcement agency, to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, or the public, to enforce the terms of any agreement, or for any other purpose that is required or permitted by law.
- Fraud Detection. We may disclose your Personal Information in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of this policy, or as otherwise required by law.
- Compliance with ALAS Rules, Polices and other Requirements. We may disclose your Personal Information in order to ensure that you are complying with all applicable aspects of your policies and with ALAS’s rules, policies and other requirements for participation in the Services we provide to members.
- Mergers and Acquisitions. In the event that ALAS or its assets may be or are acquired by, or merged with, another organization or company including through bankruptcy, we may disclose your Personal Information with any of our legal successors.
Keeping Your Information Safe
We have implemented technical, administrative, and physical security controls to protect your personal information against unauthorized access. However, you can help keep your data secure. You are responsible for choosing a secure password when creating your account to access restricted portions of our website, including the secure Member Section of the website. You should keep this password confidential and choose a password that you do not use on any other site. You should not share your password with anyone else, including anyone who works for us. Although we will do our best to protect your Personal Information, transmission of personal information to and from our Services is at your own risk.
Third-Party Websites
ALAS is only responsible for this Policy and the content of our own website. Our website may contain links to other third-party websites that are not under our control and that we do not sponsor, endorse or maintain. ALAS is not responsible for the content or the privacy practices of such websites, and they are not governed by this Policy or any other ALAS policies or terms of use. Please consult the privacy policies of those websites for information about their privacy practices.
Retention
We retain your personal information based on legal requirements or business needs. Generally, we only retain personal information for as long as is reasonably necessary for our business purpose or as required by law.
Your Privacy Controls
Account Information
If you would at any time like to review or change the information in your account or terminate your account, you can:
- Log into your account profile and update your user account.
- Contact us using the contact information provided below.
Upon your request to terminate your account, we will deactivate or delete your account and information from our active databases. However, some information may be retained in our files to prevent fraud, troubleshoot problems, assist with any investigations, enforce our Terms of Use or comply with legal requirements.
Notice to Residents of Nevada
We do not sell any Personal Information we collect to any third parties. If we were to do so in the future, we will update this Policy, and provide Nevada residents with the opportunity to opt-out of the sale of their Personal Information.
Personal Information of Minors
This website is not intended for use by minors, and we do not knowingly solicit or collect personally identifiable information from minors. We request that minors not provide Personal Information through our website. If we obtain actual knowledge that we have collected information from someone under the age of 16, we will promptly delete that information.
Do Not Track
Our Site does not collect personal data about your online activities over time and across third-party websites or online services. Therefore, “do not track” signals transmitted from web browsers do not apply to our Site, and we do not alter our data collection and use practices upon receipt of such a signal.
California Consumer Rights
- We collect the Personal Information described in the “What Personal Information We Collect” section of this Policy.
- We collect Personal Information for the purposes described in the “How We Use Your Personal Information” section of this Policy.
- We do not sell or share your personal information as those terms are used in the California Consumer Privacy Act.
- You can read about our data retention practices in the “Retention” section of this Policy.
Our Privacy Policy provides you with an overview of what Personal Information ALAS collects, uses and discloses to third parties, as well as what rights individuals have with respect to their Personal Information collected by ALAS. This page describes the additional rights that California residents have with respect to their Personal Information. This page supplements, but does not replace, ALAS’s Privacy Policy.
California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits California residents to request and obtain from us, once a year and free of charge, information about categories of personal information (if any) we disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes and the names and addresses of all third parties with which we shared personal information in the immediately preceding calendar year. If you are a California resident and would like to make such a request, please submit your request in writing to us using the contact information provided below. Please be aware, however, that ALAS does not currently disclose your Personal Information to any third parties for marketing purposes. Under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), California residents have additional privacy rights, which are described below:
(1) Your Rights to Request to Know and to Access Personal Information
If you want to know the Personal Information we have collected about you in the last 12 months, you may submit a verifiable consumer request to us and, subject to our verification of that request and certain legal limitations, we will provide you with the following information to the extent it is available to us:
- the categories of Personal Information we have collected about you;
- the categories of sources from which the Personal Information is collected;
- the business or commercial purpose for collecting, disclosing, or selling, if applicable, the Personal Information;
- the categories of third parties with whom we have shared or sold, if applicable, your Personal Information; and
- the specific pieces of Personal Information we have collected about you.
You may submit a verifiable consumer request up to two (2) times in a twelve (12)-month period for access to your Personal Information.
When you submit an access request, you can request that we deliver the information to you by mail or electronically. If you elect to receive the information electronically, to the extent it is technically feasible for us to do so, we will provide the requested information in a portable and readily useable format. To the extent that we collect the information, we will not disclose any of it in response to an access request: your social security number, driver’s license number or other government-issued identification number, financial account number, any health or medical identification number, an account password, or security questions or answers in response to a request to know.
(2) Right to Request Deletion of your Personal Information
You have the right to request that we delete the personal information we have about you subject to certain limitations. If we do not delete your personal information for reasons permitted under applicable law, we will let you know.
(3) Right to Correct Inaccurate Personal Information
You have the right to request that we correct inaccurate personal information that we maintain about you.
(4) Your Right to Opt-Out of the Sale or Sharing of Personal Information
ALAS does not sell or share your Personal Information as those words are used in the CCPA.
(5) Your Right to Non-Discrimination
The CCPA prohibits businesses from discriminating against California consumers for exercising any of their rights under the CCPA. This means that if you exercise any of your rights under the CCPA, we will not deny you goods or services; charge you different prices or rates for goods or services; or provide different levels or quality of goods or services to you.
Exercising Your Privacy Rights
To exercise one or more of your CCPA rights, please submit a verifiable consumer request:
- Send an email to [email protected] containing your request and all of the verification information set forth below; or
- Call toll-free to 877-201-7159 and provide all of the verification information set forth below.
If you wish to authorize a third party to make a request on your behalf as an authorized agent, you must contact ALAS directly and must provide a valid California power of attorney or comparable documentation of written permission from you and verification of your identity with ALAS. You may also make a privacy request on behalf of your minor child. All verifiable consumer requests must include sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information, or an authorized representative.
If we require any additional information from you in order to verify your identity, we will contact you. Any additional information you provide for verification purposes will be deleted within a reasonable period of time after responding to your consumer request.
For a request related to a household, all members of the household must submit the request, and each must provide information sufficient for us to verify their identity. Typically, that will include, any email or physical address and phone number that may have been submitted to us and a valid phone number belonging to the individuals making the request. We may deny a request from a household if we cannot verify that the individual(s) making the request are part of the same household.
Changes to the Privacy Policy
We ask that you read this Privacy Policy from time to time. We may modify it at any time in our sole discretion. If we make material changes to this Policy that change our rights to use Personal Information that we have previously collected about you, we will notify you or obtain your consent, as required by law. Any changes to this Policy will become effective when we post the revised Privacy Policy on our website.
Contact Us
If you have any questions or privacy concerns after reviewing this Privacy Policy, please send an email to [email protected] or [email protected] or send a letter to:
Attorneys’ Liability Assurance Society (ALAS)
311 South Wacker Drive
Suite 5700
Chicago, IL 60606
United States of America
Attn: General Counsel
Last Updated: February 5, 2024
Disclaimers
Website Disclaimer
Copyright © 2024 by Attorneys’ Liability Assurance Society. All Rights Reserved. ALAS is the registered trademark of Attorneys’ Liability Assurance Society. Fitch is the registered trademark of Fitch, Inc. This website is maintained by ALAS as a convenience to policyholders and potential policyholders.
Social Media Disclaimer
Material posted by ALAS on LinkedIn is provided for informational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice and is not intended to establish a standard of care for the practice of law. Although we endeavor to post material that is timely when posted, we disclaim any duty to update our posts. You should not rely or act on any legal information posted by ALAS without consulting with qualified counsel. To the extent that we link to content provided by third parties, we make no representations about the accuracy or completeness of that content. We disclaim any responsibility for content published by third parties through the ALAS LinkedIn page and note that such content does not necessarily reflect the views of ALAS.
Hotline Disclaimer
Copyright © 2024 by Attorneys’ Liability Assurance Society. All rights reserved. Distribution within ALAS insured firms expressly permitted. As to any standard of care to be inferred from our Hotline messages, we refer to and hereby incorporate the statement on that subject appearing on the 2024 ALAS Loss Prevention Manual.