Privacy Policy | Torys LLP

Torys LLP and its affiliates, including Toryco Services (collectively, “Torys”, “we”, “us,” “our”), are committed to the proper management of the personal information that we collect, use and disclose in the course of business. This includes the information of our clients, visitors to the Torys website (the “Site”), and others.

In providing legal advice to clients, we have a professional obligation to maintain the confidentiality of information that we receive within a lawyer–client relationship. The practices set out in this privacy policy (the “Policy”) are in addition to those professional obligations and balance our legal and regulatory obligations related to data protection and the privacy rights of individuals with our need to collect, use or disclose personal information for legitimate business and legal purposes in Canada and the United States.

Personal Information and Your Consent

Personal information means any information about or that can be used to identify you as an individual. For example, this can include information in your résumé or about your employment if you are applying for a job with Torys, “Know Your Client” background and contact details, and any other information that you choose to provide to Torys.

By providing us with your personal information, by retaining our firm for legal services, or by accessing the Site, you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as described in this Policy. If you choose to retain Torys’ legal services, we may separately obtain your consent to this Policy and/or seek additional consent using other methods, as permitted by applicable law, depending upon the circumstances and the type of information being handled in the course of those services.

You have the right to withdraw any consent you have provided to us, as described in more detail below.

Collection of Personal Information

We will not collect personal information indiscriminately. We will limit the amount and the type of information we collect to that necessary to fulfill the purposes we have identified in this Policy, or as otherwise permitted or required by law. We may collect the following types of information from you directly:

Business and/or personal contact information (including name, phone number, email address and personal mailing address);
“Know Your Client” background information when you are engaging Torys’ legal services;
Information about your business, business interests, professional event attendance, and/or personal interests to better serve you and foster our relationship; and
Any other information that you choose to provide to Torys or that you include in communications with Torys during the course of your professional relationship with us.

We do not collect payment information from clients for billing purposes.

When possible, we will collect personal information from you directly. However, to provide legal services to clients or for legal, administrative, marketing or management purposes, we may also collect personal information through outside sources. These include government agencies or institutions, employers, service providers, professional event organizers, and through interactions with our social media accounts.

If you provide us with the personal information of another individual, you represent and warrant that you have the authority to do so, including where applicable that you have obtained the necessary consent of the other person for us to collect, use and/or disclose their personal information.

Use of Personal Information

We use personal information only as described in this Policy or as otherwise disclosed to you. We only use personal information to deliver and improve our services, and to otherwise fulfill our professional obligations. More specifically, we use the personal information we collect for the following purposes.

Client intake and conflicts checks: to determine whether we can act for or against you, including to identify conflicts of interest, and to otherwise comply with our Know Your Client obligations.
Legal services: to offer and provide legal services to you, including obtaining and carrying out client instructions and communicating with clients in connection with our business and our legal services.
Firm administration: to maintain our knowledge management system, to manage our business, to administer our client records, to hire new staff members and legal professionals, for accounting purposes, and to bill for our services.
Legal obligations: to protect against fraud, illegal activities, or error; to ensure that all our obligations as legal professionals are being met; to engage in business transactions involving Torys LLP or any one of its affiliates; and as otherwise permitted or required by law.
Marketing and invitations: to send you newsletters about our services or about legal developments we think would interest you; to distribute practice group bulletins, articles and other legal updates and publications to you if you have subscribed to our mailing list(s) and have consented to receiving such electronic messages from Torys; to send you gifts; and to invite you to client functions, seminars, sporting or cultural events.
Improving our services: to conduct internal analytics to determine areas for improvement in client engagement and develop growth and enhancement strategies across our legal practice areas; to assess Site use and traffic; to respond to any feedback, questions, or comments we receive through the Site.
Other: for any other purposes that we have disclosed to you and for which we have separately obtained your consent.

Collection and Use of Employee Candidate Information

For employee candidates, we may additionally collect the following personal information as part of our hiring process.

Directly from you: we may collect employment, education, and résumé information, consent to a background check, and any other information you provide during the recruitment process when seeking employment at Torys, including details about your ethnic or cultural background and other demographic information that you choose to provide.
From outside sources: we may collect personal information from employment or general references that you provide, along with any other outside sources that assist us in conducting criminal record checks, employment verification, education verification, and public safety verification.

Automated decision-making: we may use automated processes involving candidate information as part of our overall assessment of candidates. However, we will never make a hiring decision using only automated methods. If you have any questions about these processes or if you would like further details on a particular decision that affects you, please contact us using the contact information listed below.

Disclosure of Personal Information

We disclose personal information only as described in this Policy, with your consent, or as otherwise permitted or required by law.

To provide legal services, we may sometimes disclose our clients’ personal information to Torys’ affiliates and to third parties, including foreign agents and government or regulatory agencies. As Torys has offices in Toronto, New York, Calgary, Montréal and Halifax, we may share personal information between offices to perform legal services or for marketing purposes.

We do not disclose information to third parties for any purposes that are not necessary for the provision of our services or the fulfillment of our legal and professional obligations. More specifically, we disclose personal information:

To expert or professional third parties when it is necessary to do so to provide legal services to our clients—for example, when we engage an expert, consultant, agent or another law firm on the client’s behalf in a matter;
To vendors and service providers, inside or outside Canada, retained by Torys to assist us with marketing, technical support, and mailing;
To third parties to assist us in evaluating your creditworthiness or to collect debts outstanding on an account;
To reputable third-party legal research organizations like Chambers and Partners, with your separate consent, to enable you to provide references regarding the quality of our services;
To anyone who we reasonably believe is your agent;
To our insurers and to regulatory agencies in connection with regulatory or other activities relating to the obligations of Torys and its professional responsibilities in relation to the practice of law;
In connection with a business transaction involving Torys LLP or any one of its affiliates; and
To any other third parties, where necessary for the fulfillment of our legal and professional obligations, where you consent, or where such disclosure is required or permitted by law.

We prohibit third-party service providers and other third parties we retain to assist us on your behalf (such as expert witnesses or consultants) from using the personal information we share with them for any purpose other than to complete the services they provide to us. We require third-party service providers to take all reasonable measures to maintain and protect the confidentiality and security of the personal information we share with them.

Cross-Border Transfer and Storage

Your personal information may be processed, accessed and/or stored in jurisdictions outside of Canada or outside of the province in which it was collected. In these cases, your personal information will be subject to the laws of that jurisdiction, and it may be disclosed to the governmental authorities, courts, or law enforcement agencies of those jurisdictions if required by law. We transfer your personal information to other jurisdictions (either within Canada or to another country) in accordance with this Policy and with all applicable data protection laws.

Use of Cookies and Other Technologies on the Site

Certain information may be collected about your browsing activities and devices when you access the Site using the technologies described below.

Internet Service Provider and Server Logs

Our website is hosted on servers shared with an Internet service provider (“ISP”). Any personal information collected on our behalf by the ISP, such as server log data (see below), is managed in accordance with this Policy and is protected by applicable law.

Certain information about Internet users’ traffic patterns is passively and automatically collected and linked to users’ Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses. These unique IP addresses are assigned to all Web users by their ISPs, and are automatically logged by our Internet servers.

As part of establishing and maintaining Internet connections, our servers automatically log information about visits to our website. Server logs record statistical information, such as a visitor’s IP address and type of operating system, the time and duration of visit, and Web pages requested. The server logs also identify categories of visitors by items such as domain and browser type. These statistics are reported in de-identified, aggregate form to us and are used to improve our website and ensure that it provides the optimal online experience for visitors.

We do not use IP addresses to identify or locate individuals who access the Site, and we do not link server log information to any other data in a way that would enable us to identify individual visitors, except where required or permitted by law for security purposes (e.g., investigating fraud or a security breach).

Cookies

Like many other websites, our Site makes use of “per session” and “persistent” cookie technology. Cookies are small text files that contain a unique identification number that are automatically deposited on a visitor’s device:

Per session cookies track information during an open session and are stored only temporarily in your device’s memory.
Persistent cookies are deposited on a visitor’s computer until they expire or until the visitor deletes the cookies.

Information from these cookies help us analyze traffic patterns to the Site and learn more about visitors to the Site, including the total number of visitors, the geographical location of the visitor, and the types of Internet browsers (e.g., Google Chrome, Firefox or Microsoft Edge) and operating systems (e.g., Windows or Apple MacOS) that our visitors use. We also use this information to enhance the online user experience and the overall quality of the Site. We do not cross-reference this information with any type of personal information that is voluntarily offered through the Site.

Remarketing and Third Parties

The Site also sometimes uses third party vendor re-marketing tracking cookies, including the Google AdWords tracking cookie. This means we will show ads to you across the Internet, specifically on the Google Display Network. We do not collect personal information through the use of Google’s or any other third-party’s remarketing system. Rather, the third-party vendors will place cookies on web browsers in order to serve ads based on past visits to our website. This allows us to continue to market our services to those who have shown interest in our firm.

Your Cookies Options

If you would prefer not to accept cookies, you can set your Internet browser to notify you when your computer is receiving a cookie or to refuse cookies automatically. To readjust your Internet browser’s cookie options, please refer to the instruction documentation of your particular browser or seek online assistance.

You also have the option to enable and disable different categories of nonessential cookies on the Site using the cookie consent tool. We will not activate any cookies used for location or profiling by default or without your consent.

You may opt out of Google’s use of cookies by visiting Google’s Ads Settings. Also, you can opt out of other third-party vendors’ use of remarketing cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page.

If you adjust your browser settings to reject cookies or disable certain cookies through the Site tool, please be advised that the functionality of certain elements of the Site may be impacted.

Web Analytics

The Site uses tools that provide us with information and analytics about how visitors engage with our websites and online advertisements:

Google Analytics: You can learn more about how Google uses information from sites or apps that use Google’s services here, and how to adjust your browser settings to opt out of Google Analytics here.
Crazy Egg: You can learn more about how Crazy Egg uses information from sites that use Crazy Egg’s services here, and how to adjust your browser settings to opt out of Crazy Egg’s collection of information here.

The Site also uses a third-party service to identify and track the organizations with which visitors to our website are affiliated by collecting business IP addresses that access the Site; this service does not collect any personal IP address or any other personal information.

Retention of Personal Information

Torys will retain information, including personal information, for as long as it is needed for the purposes for which it was collected. For example, if you send us personal information electronically to apply for employment with Torys, we will retain your personal information for a reasonable period to permit future consideration for employment.

Torys may also be subject to legislative or professional requirements regarding the retention of certain types of information. In those cases, we will retain the information for as long as it is required or permitted by law.

Protection of Personal Information

We take all physical, organizational, contractual, and technical measures that are standard to the legal profession to protect the personal information we maintain against loss, theft, and unauthorized access, use, deletion, transfer, or disclosure. This includes developing and complying with internal privacy policies and procedures to protect personal information, respond to privacy questions, complaints or breaches, and destroy information that is no longer required.

To maintain the security and confidentiality of sensitive client information, our legal professionals are only permitted to use firm-approved, secure methods of communication with our clients. This may preclude them from using methods of communication like text messaging during the provision of legal services. We do not regularly record calls/videoconferences, and never do so without client consent.

Accessing and Correcting Your Personal Information

You have the right to access the personal information we maintain about you by writing to our Privacy Compliance Officer, whose contact information is provided at the end of this Policy. You also have the right to request that corrections be made where you can show that the information we possess is inaccurate.

Please note that under certain circumstances, you may not be permitted access; for example, we may be legally prohibited from providing you access to your records if it would cause security, legal or confidentiality concerns. If we are unable to comply with an access or correction request, we will notify you and explain the reason(s) for refusal in writing.

Withdrawing Your Consent

We will not, as a condition of supplying a service, require you to consent to the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information beyond that required to enable us to provide the services requested.

You may refuse to provide your consent to the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information either completely or for certain specific purposes that are described herein. You may also, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice, withdraw consent at any time to the continued use and disclosure of personal information previously collected. The period of reasonable notice will vary depending on the nature of the information and the purpose for which it was collected.

Torys will inform you of the implications of refusing or withdrawing consent. Withdrawing your consent for the collection, use or disclosure of certain information or for certain purposes may have legal consequences or may preclude Torys from providing you with legal or other services.

If you are subscribed to any of our mailing lists, you may change your consent preferences at any time by using the unsubscribe instructions provided or by otherwise contacting us using the contact information listed below.

Links to Other Websites

The Site may contain links to other websites, including to videoconference platforms for our live online webinars. While we try to link only to websites that share our standards and respect for privacy, we are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of other websites. We strongly encourage all Site visitors to review the privacy statements and policies of all external websites.

Changes to This Policy

We may amend this Policy at any time. We will post the Policy as amended on our website and will take reasonable steps to inform you of any amendments that materially change our personal information handling practices.

More Information About Torys’ Privacy Practices

Please contact Torys’ Privacy Compliance Officer with any privacy-related requests or any questions or concerns you have about this Policy or Torys’ handling of your personal information. We will promptly respond to your inquiry.

Privacy Compliance Officer
79 Wellington St. W., 30th Floor
TD South Tower
Toronto, ON M5K 1N2 Canada

Email: [email protected]