DISCLAIMER

The Icard Merrill website (“the Site”) provides information about the legal services we offer and/or other general information and resources. The content of this Site does not convey legal, personal, financial, career, or other professional advice of any kind. Your use of this Site does not create a lawyer-client relationship between you and Icard Merrill, nor will any information you submit to us via this Site or by electronic mail be considered a lawyer-client communication or otherwise be treated as confidential or privileged in the absence of a pre-existing express agreement by us to the contrary.

While we have carefully attempted to provide accurate information, the law varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and is continually evolving. This Site contains links to third party websites. If you use these links, you will leave the Site. We have not reviewed these third party sites and do not control and are not responsible for any of these sites, their content or their privacy policy. Thus, we do not endorse or make any representations about them, or any information, software or other products or materials found there, or any results that may be obtained from using them. If you decide to access any of the third party sites listed on our website, you do so at your own risk.

If you are not a current client of our firm, you should not email our lawyers with any confidential information or any information about a specific legal matter, given that our firm may presently represent persons or companies who have interests that are adverse to you. If you are not a current client and you email any lawyer in our firm, you do so without any expectation of confidentiality. We will not establish a professional relationship with you via email. Instead, you should contact our firm by telephone so that we can determine whether we are in a position to consult with you about any legal matters before you share any confidential or sensitive information with us.

PRIVACY

Lawyers, as providers of certain personal services, are required by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to inform their clients of their policies regarding privacy of client information. Our law firm understands your concerns as a client for privacy and the need to ensure the privacy of all your information. Your privacy is important to us and maintaining your trust and confidence is a high priority. Lawyers have been and continue to be bound by professional standards of confidentiality that are even more stringent than those required by such Act. Therefore, we have always protected your right to privacy. The purpose of this notice is to explain our Privacy Policy with regard to personal information about you that we obtain and how we keep that information secure.

INFORMATION WE COLLECT

As your attorneys, incident to representation that we provide, we may collect nonpublic personal information directly from you, from your related transactions, or obtained by us with your authorization or consent, including from third parties such as accountants, financial advisors, insurance companies and agents, banking/financial institutions, and other similar advisors.

In general, you can visit our Site without telling us who you are or sharing any information that personally identifies you (“Personally Identifiable Information”). However, throughout our Site, you may voluntarily submit Personally Identifiable Information. Icard Merrill only collects Personally Identifiable Information about you if you choose to share it with us. For example, you may subscribe to one of our newsletters by providing your email address to us, or you may submit Personally Identifiable Information through a contact form on our Site. You may also choose to provide Personally Identifiable Information by contacting an individual Icard Merrill lawyer via an email address. Personally Identifiable Information may include, but is not limited to, your name, e-mail address, physical address, and phone number.

We use your information to administer services and to improve the Site. Our primary use of personal information is to respond to requests for information, to promote the smooth and efficient administration of the Site, and to provide you with information that may be of interest to you or your business. We provide this information to you through the Site, by e-mail or by postal mail.  If you have opted into receiving communications from the firm, we may provide you with marketing information we think would be of particular interest. We will give you the opportunity to opt out of receiving such direct marketing communications.

We use various third parties to operate the Site, including, for example, our providers of professional, consulting, marketing, communications and business development services. We may disclose personally identifiable information to such entities as needed for them to perform their specific tasks under our instructions, subject to this policy. In addition, we may disclose information that you expressly authorize; as required by law or when we believe that such disclosure is necessary in connection with a judicial proceeding or to comply with a court order, law or regulation applicable to us or the Site; as we reasonably determine to be necessary to protect our property or assert our legal rights; or as we reasonably determine to be necessary to protect the property or safety of any other person. We may assemble collective, non-individually identifiable profiles of Site users and their activities and interests, which may be disclosed to third parties in our discretion.

To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the correct use of information, we employ physical, technical and administrative procedures to safeguard the personal information we collect online. However, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to the Site or to us, and you transmit such information at your own risk.

COOKIES

We use “cookies” on the Site. A cookie is a small data file that certain websites write to your hard drive when you visit them. A cookie file can contain information such as a user ID that the Site uses to track the pages you’ve visited, but the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie cannot read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites.

Although most browsers and devices accept cookies by default, their settings usually allow you to clear or decline cookies. You can configure your Internet browser to notify you when you receive a cookie, giving you the chance to accept or refuse it. You can also refuse all cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you disable cookies, however, some of the features of our websites may not function properly. To prevent your data from being used by Google Analytics, you can install Google’s opt-out browser add-on.

NONPUBLIC PERSONAL INFORMATION WE DISCLOSE

We do not disclose any nonpublic personal information about our current clients or former clients collected in the course of representation of our clients, except as expressly or impliedly authorized by those clients to enable us to effectuate the purpose of our representation or as required or permitted by law or applicable provisions of codes or professional responsibility or ethical rules governing our conduct as lawyers. Only with your authorization or consent, may we disclose nonpublic personal information to unrelated third parties. Such unrelated third parties would include accountants, financial advisors, insurance companies and agents, banks, lenders, or government authorities in connection with our representation of you.

We restrict access to nonpublic personal information about our clients to those employees of our law firm who need access to the information in order to provide legal services to you, or to provide such information to third persons incident to our representation of you.

CONFIDENTIALITY AND SECURITY

We retain records relating to professional services that we provide so that we are able to assist you with your professional needs and to comply with professional guidelines or requirements of law. In order to guard your nonpublic personal information, we maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with Federal Regulations and our professional standards.

ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE

While the foregoing federal laws and regulations establish rules and disclosure requirements, they do not limit the attorney-client privilege or the confidentiality rules for information provided to attorneys. The privilege and confidentiality rules are governed by the rules of the Florida Bar, the rules imposed on attorneys under state law and our ethics standards. In circumstances where applicable federal laws might allow disclosure, we will continue to follow the stricter non-disclosure rules of attorney-client privilege and client confidentiality applicable to us.

If you have any questions about our privacy policy, please contact us at contact@icardmerrill.com.