Privacy Policy

Drake & Associates is committed to protecting your privacy. Information or data about you or that can be used to identify you, such as your name, address(es), telephone number(s), e-mail address(es) or other information or data, may be referred to below as “personal information”. References in this Privacy Policy to “we,” “us,” “our” or “Drake & Associates” are references to the law firm of Drake & Associates LLC, an Illinois corporation, each of its affiliated law firms providing legal services through an office described as an office of Drake & Associates in this website, and representatives of the foregoing who are responsible for collecting and processing information or data about you, also known as data controllers. Please read the following Privacy Policy to understand how your personal information will be collected, stored, used and disclosed. This Privacy Policy may change periodically, so please check back from time to time. The date of the last update to this Privacy Policy is January 7, 2020.

This Privacy Policy includes details on:

1. When and how we collect personal information
2. Why we use or process personal information
3. How and where we disclose personal information
4. Our efforts to protect personal information
5. How long we keep personal information
6. Your rights regarding your personal information
7. Additional Marketing Notice
8. Questions about the Privacy Policy

1. When and how we collect personal information
   
   We collect personal information about you when you voluntarily choose to disclose such information to us, directly or indirectly through a representative. For example, you may disclose personal information to us when you submit information by mail, telephone, fax, or electronically, when you sign up for newsletters, alerts, whitepapers, legal insights and other marketing communications, or when you sign up to attend an event or program in person or online.
   
   We may also collect personal information about you from another source, for example, from a business associate of yours, your representative, an expert or a publicly available source. If you provide personal information to us about someone else (such as one of your employees or business associate), you acknowledge that you are authorized to disclose that information to us and that, without taking any further steps, we may collect, use, store and disclose that personal information as described in this Privacy Policy as if it were disclosed to us directly by such other person.
   
   We also collect certain information through automatic means. For example, we use cookies and other technologies to collect certain information when you use the www.drakeandassociatesllc.com website or other sites linked to it (collectively, “our websites”). The information collected through our websites include location, IP address, browser type, and content viewed. Please refer to our Cookies Policy for more information on the use of these tracking technologies, and how you can disable them.
   
   We do not direct any of our websites to children or individuals under eighteen (18) years of age. Individuals under eighteen (18) should consult with their parent or guardian about the use of this website.

2. Why we use or process personal information
   
   We only use your personal information for a legal and legitimate interest, such as:
   
   Legal Services: We will use and process your personal information for providing legal services, promoting and marketing our legal services, assisting with managing, enhancing and improving our legal services, communicating with you about those legal services, and complying with our legal and ethical obligations related to those legal services.
   
   Marketing: We may process certain of your personal information for direct marketing based on your consent. You have the option to withdrawing your consent at any time. We also may process your location data, IP address, and content viewed on our websites pursuant to our Cookies Policy. For more information on our marketing practices, see the Additional Marketing Notice below.
   
   Contract performance: We may use or process personal information in connection with pre-contract activities and discussion with you, and to perform a contract that we have with you.
   
   Legal obligations: We will use or process personal information as necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject. This includes using or processing personal information for defense of claims against us and satisfying any government reporting obligations and requests.
   
   Other legitimate interests: We will process your personal information for any of our other legitimate interests not described above. These include analyzing use of our website or services, tailoring website and news content, setting preferences in our website or electronic mailings, improving our websites, offering and managing programs and events, fulfilling our obligations to our clients and others, and managing our client and vendor relationships.

3. How and where we disclose personal information
   
   We will not sell, trade, or rent your personal information.
   
   We operate our websites from the United States of America and store the information we collect through our websites in the United States of America. We market and provide legal services, however, in many countries throughout the world. Accordingly, we will disclose information collected through our websites, as well as other personal information, across offices and geographical boundaries, within and outside of the firm, for legal and legitimate purposes as described above.
   
   We will also disclose your personal information to third party service providers that perform services for us and who are obligated to secure the information, such as barristers, special consultants, expert witnesses other outsourced service providers, continuing legal education providers, information technology suppliers, analytics providers, mailing providers, joint marketing or event providers, caterers, and security providers. These service providers may be located anywhere in the world.
   
   We will also disclose your personal information as required by a court order or any other legal or regulatory requirement, including in response to requests from public and government authorities outside your country of residence or to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, or that of you or others anywhere in the world.
   
   The recipients of your personal information may be located outside of the jurisdiction where you reside. The laws of these other countries may not provide the same level of protection as the laws of your home country. By providing us with personal information about yourself, you acknowledge the disclosure of such personal information to these recipients. Any processing of your personal information outside of your jurisdiction will be in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
   
   We rely on the European Commission approved Standard Contractual Clauses (controller-to-controller) (2004/915//EC) to govern the transfer of personal data by an office in the European Economic Area to another of our offices outside of the European Economic Area.

4. Our efforts to protect personal information
   
   We take reasonable measures to protect personal information from misuse, interference, and unauthorized loss, access, modification or disclosure. We undertake industry standard data protection practices, including by deploying a variety of commercially available software and hardware security tools. We will take such measures with respect to your personal information using security measures that we use for personal information of others, and we will do so in compliance with all applicable data protection laws and our professional secrecy and ethical obligations. Unfortunately, despite such measures, no data transmission over the Internet and no database or other depository of information can be one hundred percent secure. As a result, while we will strive to protect your personal information, we cannot and do not guarantee or warrant the security of any of your personal information. We will not be and are not liable for disclosures of your personal information due to errors in transmission, networks that we do not control, or unauthorized acts of third parties.

5. How long we keep personal information
   
   We will keep your personal information until such time as we no longer expect to need to use it for any legal and legitimate purpose and otherwise in accordance with all applicable laws. At the appropriate time, we will take reasonable steps to destroy your personal information or ensure that your personal information is de-identified, except were we need to retain such information to satisfy legal and professional ethical obligations.

6. Your rights with regard to your personal information
   
   Except as otherwise expressly discussed in this Privacy Policy, this policy only addresses our use and disclosure of personal information we collect from you. To the extent that you disclose your personal information to third parties, including any third party website linked from any of our websites, you are subject to the privacy customs and policies of those third parties. We encourage you to ask questions before you disclose any personal information to such third parties.
   
   Our other obligations to you as our client, if applicable, are not addressed by this Privacy Policy. Those obligations are described in our terms of engagement or otherwise arise as a result of applicable law or ethics.
   
   Subject to local law, you may have certain rights regarding personal information we have collected about you. Such rights might include the right to (a) know what personal information we have collected about you, (b) update or correct such information if you believe there is an inaccuracy, (c) restrict the processing of your personal information, (d) request deletion of your personal information, (e) object to our use of your personal information, or (f) request transmission of your personal information to another data controller. If you would like to exercise any of these rights provided under local law, please send us an email at privacy@drakeandassociatesllc.com.
   
   If you would like to make a complaint about how we handled your personal information, or make a complaint about a breach of data protection laws, please send us an email at privacy@drakeandassociatesllc.com. Complaints will be investigated and the outcome of the investigation will be communicated to you after the complaint is made in accordance with applicable law. You may have a right in some locations to file a complaint with your local data protection authority.

7. Additional Marketing Notice
   
   We may process additional personal information provided by you for marketing purposes, for example in correspondence relating to an event, when you let us know what legal areas you are interested in, and when you wish to be contacted by us. This may include access or dietary requirements which may reveal information about your health or religious beliefs.
   
   Your personal information may also be collected in our relationship management system when you register online to receive legal updates, or when we otherwise receive your contact details. You will receive a confirmation notice when your details have been added to our relationship management system. You can update or request, however, to have your data removed from our relationship management at any time by visiting our preferences page. You also will be provided with the option to unsubscribe or opt-out from receiving further marketing communications by following the instructions at the bottom of each communication.

8. Questions about the Privacy Policy
   
   Privacy and security is important to us. We are committed to building a trusting relationship with you, and we will continually monitor feedback and seek to improve our services to meet your needs. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or the practices of this website, or if you would like to provide comments, please send us an e-mail at privacy@drakeandassociatesllc.com.