Privacy Policy

Stark & Stark thanks you for visiting this web site. Stark & Stark is committed to protecting your privacy while providing you with a positive on-line experience. Stark & Stark respects your privacy, and we believe you have the right to know what information we collect, how we use it and what security measures we have taken to protect your information.

Protecting Your Personal Information is Important

Stark & Stark, A Professional Corporation dba Stark & Stark Attorneys at Law (referred to herein as “Stark & Stark,” “we”, “us”, “our”) is committed to protecting your privacy while providing you with a positive experience. Stark & Stark respects your privacy, and we believe you have the right to know what information we collect, how we use it and what security measures we have taken to protect your information.

This privacy policy notice (“Privacy Policy”) explains how Stark & Stark handles the “personal information” we collect when individuals engage with us for our legal services (our “Services”) including on our web site (“Site”), and the personal information we receive or share about individuals with third parties to provide our Services, including personal information subject to the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).

To affirm our continued commitment to the proper use of client information and the protection of your privacy, we have set forth the following privacy policies.

In accordance with the foregoing, by visiting our Site, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy, please do not use our Site.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

Stark & Stark will provide each client with initial notice of the firm’s current policy when the client relationship is established. Stark & Stark shall also provide each client with a new notice of the firm’s current privacy policies at least annually. If, at any time, Stark & Stark adopts material changes to its privacy policies, the firm shall provide each client with a revised notice reflecting the new privacy policies.

Alternatively, the current version of this Privacy Policy can be accessed on our Site at the bottom of our homepage, or at the bottom of our other Site pages. By accessing our Site after we have posted changes to this Privacy Policy, you are agreeing to the terms of the Privacy Policy as modified.

How We Collect Information

We collect personal information to provide our Services, for legal and regulatory purposes and to manage our business and relationships. For further details, please see the “How We use the Information We Collect” section of this Privacy Policy below.

You will voluntarily provide most of your personal information directly to us. We will also obtain personal information from other sources or persons, including:

• Information Collected Directly from You: We may collect personal information about you—such as your name, address, telephone number, fax number, e-mail address, etc.—directly from you. For example, personal information may be collected when you fill out a “Contact Us” form on our Site, sign up for our mailing lists, register for events we host or sponsor, post comments on our blogs, or otherwise provide us information through the Site.
• Public Information: Information about you or your business which is publicly available, for example on your employers’ web site, public professional social networking sites, the press, and relevant electronic data sources.
• Information from Third Parties: Information provided to us by third parties (for example by our or your clients, agents, suppliers, advisers, consultants, lawyers and other professional experts, previous, current and future employers, complainants, correspondents and enquirers, regulators and public authorities, relatives, and other persons) where such information is provided to us in connection with the relevant purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.
• Information Collected through Our Site: When you visit stark-stark.com and use our Site links such as our Contact Form, certain information may be collected. Among the types of information that may be collected are:
  • Domain names of visitors to our Site;
  • Your name, address, e-mail address and additional information you provide in any form;
  • “Navigational information” regarding the traffic patterns of our Site, including the number of visits to a particular page, user-specific information on which pages a guest visits, average length of time spent on the Site and similar Site usage data; and
  • Any information that you may choose to submit in connection with any e-mail messages, on-Site surveys, registry programs, contests and the like;
  • Cookies that track your IP address and certain other information from you when you visit our Site. For further details, please see the Site Appendix attached below.
• Information Collected on Our Premises: If you visit our premises, your image may be captured on IP systems operated by our firm or the entity, which manages our premises.
• Information Collected through Our IT Systems and Network: Our IT systems and network automatically filter email and other electronic communications for viruses and compliance with our internal policies. Usage of our IT systems (and access to secure office areas) is also automatically logged. Where appropriate and local law permits us to, we will monitor such communications and logs to ensure compliance with applicable rules and law and our internal policies, and for business continuity purposes.

The Types of Information We Collect

The types of Information we collect and how we process it will vary depending on the  relationship we have with you (e.g. whether you are a client, a supplier, a service provider, a vendor, or someone else) and the context.

The specific types of personal information we collect and share depend on the Services we provide you. Generally, this information can include:

• Personally identifying information such as name, telephone, address, date of birth, social security number, government identification, and marital status;
• Digital footprint data such as e-mail, login information, and IP addresses;
• Biographical data such as age, gender, and ethnicity;
• Employment data such as national insurance number, salary information, job position, tax information, business contact information;
• Financial Information such as bank information, salary information, credit card numbers, and pension;
• Health information such as medical history.

Special Categories of Information

In accordance with the above, there are certain circumstances where we will need to collect more sensitive personal information, such as (unless applicable local law prevents this) diversity and health data, details of offenses, regulatory actions and related proceedings (“Sensitive Information”). Such information may be collected from you or, in those jurisdictions where it is permitted under applicable local law, from third parties.

This will typically be more relevant: (a) where necessary to enable us to provide you with our Services or (b) as part of our due diligence on third parties (including clients and related persons, and suppliers) – please see the relationship-specific sections of this Privacy Policy for further information.

Sensitive Information may also be inadvertently disclosed to us (for example, if you provide us with your dietary requirements for the purpose of a business meal – which may give an indication concerning your religion or health. Providing the name of your spouse or partner to us may also reveal your sexual orientation).

We will only request Sensitive Information where necessary and we are legally allowed to, and will put in place enhanced safeguards to protect such Sensitive Information.

Lawful Basis for Processing

Stark & Stark may have one or more of the following lawful bases to process your personal information:

• Consent: your informed, and voluntary consent to process your personal information in connection with our Services.
• Contract: processing your personal information is necessary in order to fulfill a contract.
• Legal Obligation: processing is necessary to comply with applicable rules, laws, and regulations.
• Legitimate Interests: processing is necessary to the legitimate interests of our firm and/or a third party.

For more information on the lawful bases on which we may process your personal information, please see the section below, “How We Use the Information We Collect.”

How We Use the Information We Collect

To Provide Legal Services

Where it is necessary to perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request to enter into the contract, Stark & Stark may collect or generate additional details about you during the course of such engagement in order to provide you with Services.

For Business Administration and Legal Compliance

We may also use your personal information:

• To administer our relationship and maintain contractual relations;
• For accounting and tax purposes;
• For marketing and business development;
• To comply with the firm’s regulatory obligations;
• To establish, exercise or defend legal rights;
• For historical and statistical purposes.

For Client Development

We may use personal information in order to respond to, prepare for and present pitches and other proposals, and identify potential business opportunities. Largely, this involves our collection and use of non-personal business information about current, former and prospective corporate clients. However, we may also process limited personal information about individuals (name, current and former company, current and former title, contact information and similar information).

To Participate in Industry Benchmarking and Rankings

We may participate in industry surveys and reports which clients use to assess law firms and the legal industry. Largely, this involves our collection and use of non-personal business information about clients and matters. However, we may also review and share limited personal information about individuals (such as referee name, title and contact).

To Comply with Another Party’s Legitimate Interests and our Legal and Regulatory Obligations

As part of your business or other commercial dealings with the firm, we may collect or generate details about you to maintain our relationship with you and maintain contractual relations, for accounting and tax purposes and applicable legal and/or regulatory obligations.

Prevent Misconduct, Abuse and Misuse

Subject to our professional and ethical duties, we use personal information where we believe necessary to investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person, or violations of our terms of engagement. We also use personal information to protect and secure the Site and our information systems and networks.

Communications

Where permitted by applicable law, Stark & Stark may record and/or monitor telephone calls made and received and electronic communications sent to or received by the firm’s networks in order to protect our business and verify compliance with our policies and relevant legal requirements. Any such recording and/or monitoring will be carried out for lawful business purposes and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. This may include the following purposes:

• recording facts (including converting voice messages into text);
• establishing compliance with the firm’s policies and procedures;
• complying with applicable laws and regulations;
• for crime prevention and detection;
• to monitor the effective use and operation of the firm’s networks and systems.

In order to communicate efficiently, correspondence and documents may be sent by unencrypted email. You are aware that this is not guaranteed as a secure method of communication, nor are there any service standards for delivery. If you would prefer us not to use unencrypted email, please speak to your contact at the firm.

Analytics and Improvement

We may use your personal information to better understand how users access and use the Site, our other law firm services, and for other research and analytical purposes, such as to evaluate and improve our services and business operations and to develop services and features. For additional information, please see the section, “Do We use “Cookies” or Obtain Personal Information by Automated Means?” below.

Newsletters, Mailing Lists, Direct Marketing, and Business Development

We may use your personal information for direct marketing purposes, including to send you newsletters, client alerts and information we think may interest you. If you are located in a jurisdiction that requires opt-in consent to receive electronic marketing messages, we will only send you such messages if you opt-in to receive them. We may also use your personal information to develop new services and determine how to market our services.

You may update your preferences or opt out at any time. For more information on how to exercise your rights, see the section, “Individual Rights” below.

Events

If you attend an event that is run by or in association with our firm, we will collect contact details as part of event registration. This information may include dietary requirements and details of any health issues or disabilities which may impact upon your attendance at or participation in the event.

Where an event is sponsored in association with a partner organization or hosted at an external venue, we may need to share your personal details with the partner, event organizer or venue. Only the minimum information will be shared as necessary for the purposes of running the event.

Should you choose to register or submit your information to any events where Stark & Stark co-sponsors with a third party, Stark & Stark will have no control over the third party sponsors’ use of this information, and this Privacy Policy will not apply.

Stark & Stark uses this information to help us develop and improve our Site to better meet your needs. We may use your name or e-mail address to contact you or respond to your inquiries. We also use this information to help us diagnose technical issues relating to the performance of our Site.

Where required by applicable law, we obtain consent to process personal information.  In the event that we use personal information we collect for other purposes not identified above where direct client consent is required under applicable rules, laws and/or regulations, we will provide specific notice at the time we collect such personal information.

Providing Information to Third Parties

We may share personal information with the following categories of third parties as necessary:

• Our professional advisers, such as lawyers and accountants.
• Government and/or regulatory authorities.
• Professional indemnity insurers.
• Regulators, tax authorities and/or corporate registries.
• Third parties to whom we outsource certain services, such as, without limitation, document processing and translation services, management consultants, confidential waste disposal, IT systems or software providers, IT Support service providers, document and information storage providers, and other service providers.
• Third parties engaged in connection with our services, such as counsel, arbitrators, mediators, clerks, witnesses, court reporters, court, opposing parties and their lawyers, document review platforms and experts, such as tax advisors.
• Third party service providers to assist us with client insight analytics, such as Google Analytics.
• Third party postal or courier providers who assist us in delivering our postal marketing campaigns to you, or delivering documents related to a matter.

Additional Information Regarding Third Party Contractors and other Data Controllers

As mentioned above, we may appoint third parties (such as sub-contractors, vendors, and service providers) as required to deliver our Services, such as, without limitation, document processing and translation services, confidential waste disposal, IT systems or software providers, IT Support service providers, and document and information storage providers, who will process personal information on our behalf and at our direction. We conduct an appropriate level of due diligence and put in place contractual documentation in relation to any sub-contractor to ensure that they process personal information appropriately and according to our legal and regulatory obligations.

Further, we may appoint external data controllers where necessary to deliver our Services (for example, but without limitation, accountants, attorneys, consultants and other third party experts including, but without limitation, other law firms). When doing so, we will comply with our legal and regulatory obligations in relation to the personal information including, but without limitation, putting appropriate safeguards in place.

Security

Stark & Stark makes every effort to protect the security of your personal information. We are committed to keeping personal information secure and we have implemented appropriate information security policies, rules and technical measures to protect the personal information that we have under our control from unauthorized access, improper use or disclosure, unauthorized modification and unlawful destruction or accidental loss.

All of our employees, consultants, workers and data processors (i.e., those who process your personal information on our behalf, for the purposes listed above), who have access to, and are associated with, the processing of personal information are obligated to respect the confidentiality of such personal information.

Individual Rights

To the extent permitted by the applicable law of your jurisdiction, in relation to your personal information, you may request:

• to have your personal information corrected, for example, if it is incomplete or incorrect;
• to opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time;
• the right to file a complaint with an applicable government regulator such as a Data Protection Authority.

In addition to the foregoing, if you are located in the European Economic Area (“EEA”), to the extent permitted by applicable law, in relation to your personal information, you may request:

• to access the personal information held by us about you;
• the right to restrict or object to the processing of your personal information, or request that your personal information is erased;
• the right to receive a copy of the personal information which you have provided to the firm, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format (known as “data portability”);
• where you have provided personal information voluntarily, or otherwise consented to its use, the right to withdraw your consent.

To help protect your privacy and maintain security, we may take steps to verify your identity before granting you access to your information.

To the extent permitted by applicable law, a charge may apply before we provide you with a copy of any of your personal information that we maintain.

Updates and Removing Your Name

We will endeavor to ensure your personal information is kept accurate, complete, up to date and relevant. Please let us know if any of your details change. If you feel your personal information is not accurate, complete or up to date, please notify us and we will take reasonable steps to ensure it is corrected. You can contact us using the details listed below.

If you do not wish to receive e-mails from Stark & Stark in the future, please let us know by Contacting Us using the information below.

Retention of Personal Information

To the extent permitted by applicable law, we retain your personal information for the period necessary to serve the purposes for which we obtained it. We may also retain your personal information beyond such period in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, or another lawful basis, including but not limited to, compliance with our contractual obligations, legal obligations, regulatory obligations, legal claims, or another legitimate interest.

Data Transfers

We may transfer the personal information we obtain about you to recipients in countries other than the country in which the information originally was collected. Those countries may not have the same data protection laws as the country in which you initially provided the information. To the extent required by applicable law, when we transfer your information to recipients in other countries (such as the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland or Cayman Islands), we will protect that information as described in this Privacy Policy.

If you are located in the European Economic Area (“EEA”), we will comply with applicable legal requirements regarding the provision of appropriate safeguards for the transfer of personal information to recipients in countries for which the European Commission has not issued an adequacy decision.

Data Controller

As identified under applicable law, the data controller for this Site is: Stark & Stark located at the address below.

Former Clients

Our Privacy Policy continues to apply to all former clients in accordance with applicable laws, rules and regulations.

Additional Information about Our Site

For additional information about our Site policies, please refer to the Site Appendix below.

Who can you contact at Stark & Stark?

If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy or would like to exercise your rights, you may contact us using the information below:

Craig Hilliard
General Counsel
Stark & Stark, A Professional Corporation
100 American Metro Boulevard
Hamilton, NJ 08619
Telephone: (609) 896-9060 or (800) 535-3425
E-mail generalcounsel@stark-stark.com

Site Appendix

Security

As our Site is linked to the internet, and the internet is inherently insecure, we cannot provide any assurance regarding the security of transmission of information you communicate to us online. We also cannot guarantee that the information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted over the internet. Accordingly, any personal information or other information which you transmit to us online is transmitted at your own risk.

Please note that no transmission over the internet is completely secure or error-free, and that the information security policies, rules and technical measures utilized and maintained by us may be subject to compromise.

Links to Third-Party Websites

As a convenience to you, Stark & Stark may provide hyperlinks to websites operated by third parties. When you select these hyperlinks, you will be leaving our Site.

Stark & Stark has no control over third party websites, their content, or security. Accordingly, when you access these third party websites it is at your own risk. We encourage you to read the associated privacy policies by such third party websites to learn more about their data privacy management practices. Stark & Stark may, in its sole discretion, block links to our Site without prior notice.

Do we Track Cookies?

We may use “cookies” to help us tailor our Site to better suit your needs (for example, we may use cookies to enable us to save any personal preferences indicated by you) and to provide a more effective route to various components of our Site.

For more information on how our firm utilizes cookies and how you may disable them, please refer to our Cookie Privacy Policy.

Do we respond to Do Not Track Signals?

Do Not Track (“DNT”) is a privacy preference that users can set in certain web browsers and is a way for users to inform websites and services that they do not want certain information about their webpage visits collected over time and across websites or online services.

We do not track users across time or over multiple websites, we do not receive, or respond to, browser do-not-track signals or other similar mechanisms. However, some third party sites do keep track of your browsing activities when they serve you content, which enables them to tailor what they present to you.

To learn more about setting up a Do Not Track signal, please visit https://allaboutdnt.com/

Information Collected on our Site about Children

Our Site is not directed to children under the age of 18 years. By using our Site, you represent and warrant that you are at least 18 years old.

To the extent we have unintentionally collected any of your Personal Information on our Site from a person under the age of 18 years old, you may request and obtain removal of such Personal Information. To make such a request, please send an email with a detailed description of the specific content or information to generalcounsel@stark-stark.com.

Please be aware that such a request does not ensure complete or comprehensive removal of the content or information you have posted and that there may be circumstances in which the law does not require or allow removal even if requested.