Stanley M. Tick & Associates

Privacy Policy

General

Stanley M. Tick & Associates has endeavored to comply with all known legal and ethical requirements in creating this website.

Privacy Policy

The Law Society of Upper Canada, the governing body of all barristers and solicitors in the Province of Ontario, places a very high premium on the confidentiality deemed inherent in a relationship between a lawyer and his/her client. This is evident in the following excerpt taken from the Law Society's Professional Conduct Handbook, as Amended June 26, 1998:

Rule 4: Confidentiality Of Information

The lawyer has a duty to hold in strict confidence all information concerning the business and affairs of the client acquired in the course of the professional relationship, and should not divulge any such information unless expressly or impliedly authorized by the client or required by law to do so. . . (confirm citation format with GRL)

In accordance with the Law Society's Rules of Conduct, Stanley M. Tick & Associates, amongst other things, believes without any reservation or exception that:

1. a lawyer cannot provide the most effective service to his/her client unless the client can communicate with the lawyer without any reservation and the client's communication is kept in strict confidence, with or without the client's express request for privacy and secrecy;
2. the aforementioned confidentiality is extended to all forms of communication between client and lawyer;
3. the aforementioned confidentiality is also extended to the actual fact of the client's having consulted or been retained by a lawyer;
4. even after the lawyer has ceased representing the client, the aforementioned confidentiality is maintained for an indefinite period;
5. confidential information may be divulged with the express authority of the client;
6. even though to the extent necessary, confidential information may be disclosed to other lawyers, students, and non-legal staff members, all such parties shall keep the confidential information in strict confidence, even after the client has ceased his/her relationship with the firm and/or the parties are no longer employed with the firm;
7. disclosure of confidential information may be necessary only in the day-to-day activities on the client's file (e.g. the drafting of court pleadings), or in extremely unusual circumstances, such as when a lawyer has information that will prevent a crime when the lawyer has reasonable grounds to believe that a crime is likely to be committed; and
8. in cases where disclosure is required, no more information than is reasonably required shall be disclosed

Should you require further information about confidentiality in general, or the Law Society of Upper Canada's regulations on lawyer-client confidentiality, please contact our office by telephone at 905.523.6464, or by e-mail at tickinfo@smtick.com.

Sending Information to Our Office

Until you receive from our firm a retainer letter indicating that we represent you, please do not send to us by e-mail or any other form any information about any matter that may involve a potential solicitor-relationship between you and our firm without first contacting our firm by telephone at 905.523.6464. Unless we already represent you and you have already received from us a retainer letter, any information sent to our office, by e-mail or otherwise, may not be handled in a privileged or confidential fashion, nor will such sending of information create a solicitor-client relationship. After a retainer letter is issued by us to you, you may freely send information relating to your file to any member of our office, by e-mail or otherwise. For more information about our firm's policies on solicitor-client relationships, please click here.

Please note, however, e-mail communications over the Internet are still not fully secure. Information sent to us via Internet e-mail may be intercepted and read by third parties. You should avoid sending to us e-mail of a sensitive or confidential nature.