1. Introduction

1.1 Lawcadia.com is owned and operated by Lawcadia Pty Ltd (ACN 607 954 843) (“Lawcadia” “we”, “us”, “our”). It comprises our online website made available at Lawcadia.com and includes all associated websites, microsites, databases, services, software and back end systems.

1.2  Lawcadia.com is a secure, two-sided cloud-based platform that is designed to address the following core operational needs:

(a) Legal Procurement Framework

(b) Legal Project Management

(c) Legal Spend Management

(d) Relationship Management

(e) Business Process Improvement

(f)  Strategic Planning

1.3 This privacy policy (this “Policy”) sets out our practices with respect to the handling of personal information in connection with your use and our operation of Lawcadia.com, or otherwise when you interact with us. We may change this Policy from time to time. We will publish any changes on Lawcadia.com and, if we deem necessary, through our email lists. Where required by applicable law, we will obtain your consent. We encourage you to review our Policy whenever you use Lawcadia.com to stay informed about our information practices and the ways you can help protect your privacy. This Policy does not apply to any personal information that we collect or hold about our employees.

1.4 By using Lawcadia.com, every individual (“you, your”) is agreeing to this Policy.

1.5 If you do not agree to this Policy, do not follow any prompts to accept this Policy and do not access or use Lawcadia.com or interact with any other aspect of our business.

1.6 Where we provide Lawcadia.com under contract with a company, law firm or other legal entity (for example, your employer) that entity controls the information processed by Lawcadia.com. For more information, please see Section 9 below.

2. Overview

2.1 This Policy sets out the following information:

(a) What personal information do we collect about you?

(b) How do we use your personal information?

(c) Who do we share your personal information with?

(d) How do we protect your personal information?

(e) Where is your personal information hosted and processed?

(f) Your personal information rights

(g) Notification to end users

(h) How to contact us

3. What personal information do we collect about you?

3.1 Overview

We only collect personal information about you that we need for the operation of Lawcadia.com and our services, and to market and promote Lawcadia.com and our services. ‘Personal information’ is any information that could reasonably be used to identify you personally. The kinds of personal information that we collect and hold about you may depend on the circumstances in which the information is collected. For example:

(a)  if you are registered on Lawcadia.com on behalf of a corporate or government client or on behalf of a law firm, then we will collect certain information about you on our profile page that will include your name, position, contact details and certain other information that you may wish to complete using the functionality available on Lawcadia.com;

(b) if you are a partner at a law firm who wishes to submit tender responses to a company who is procuring legal services using Lawcadia.com then, in addition to your profile information, we will also collect information about your qualifications and experience;

(c) if you are a partner at a law firm who is listed as being the lead partner for a matter on Lawcadia.com that has been registered on Lawcadia.com, then we will collect ratings information about your law firm which will attach to your Lawcadia profile in accordance with our Ratings Policy; and

(d) if you are a representative for a company who has engaged a law firm on a matter that is registered on Lawcadia.com, then we will collect information about your views and opinions on the performance of the law firm engaged for the matter on Lawcadia.com in accordance with our Ratings Policy.

If we are not able to collect your personal information, we may not be able to provide you with access to Lawcadia.com or our services or do business with you or the organisation with which you are connected.

3.2 Information you provide us

Any information that you provide via Lawcadia.com or our contact numbers and addresses will be collected and stored by us. For example, we collect your email and, if you provide it, other contact details when you subscribe to our email lists.

We may monitor and record calls and other electronic communications that you make to us in certain circumstances. For example, calls to us may be monitored and recorded for training and customer service purposes.

You may wish to provide us with personal information concerning certain other individuals when you use Lawcadia.com or any of our services. For example, you may want to provide us with personal information about a colleague who may work with you on a particular matter that is registered on Lawcadia.com. If you provide us with information about any other individual, you must obtain that person’s permission to give us the information and inform them of this Policy.

3.3 Account and profile information

We collect information about you when you register for an account, create or modify your profile and/or set preferences. For example, you provide your name and contact information (such as email, phone number and work address) when you register for Lawcadia.com. You also have the option of adding a display name, profile photo, job title and other details to your profile information to be displayed in our services on Lawcadia.com. We keep track of your preferences when you select settings within our services.

 3.4 Content you provide through use of Lawcadia.com and our services

We collect content that you post, send, receive and share when you use Lawcadia.com and our services. Content also includes the files and links you upload to our services.

We keep track of certain information about you when you visit and interact with any of our services on Lawcadia.com. This information includes the features you use, the links you click on, the type, size and filenames of attachments you upload to the services in Lawcadia.com. We also collect information about the teams and people you work with.

3.5 Content you provide through other websites we operate and/or manage

We use social networking services such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to communicate with the public about Lawcadia.com and our services. When you communicate with us using these services we may collect your personal information. The social networking service will also handle your personal information for its own purposes. These sites have their own privacy policies

If you provide personal information to any third party via Lawcadia.com (for example, to another user for the purposes of using any of our services), that information will be collected and managed by those third parties as well as by us. Such third parties may have their own privacy policies that set out how they collect and use personal information and you should ensure that you familiarise yourself with any such privacy policies before deciding whether you wish to provide them with your personal information.

3.6 Information you provide through our support channels

Our services include our customer support, where you may choose to submit information regarding a problem you are experiencing with Lawcadia.com or any of our services. You may be asked to provide contact information, a summary of the problem you are experiencing, and any other documentation, screenshots or information that would be helpful in resolving the issue.

3.7 Information we collect automatically when you visit Lawcadia.com or use Lawcadia.com and our services

We collect information about you when you use Lawcadia.com, including browsing our website and taking certain actions within the services offered on Lawcadia.com.

For example, when you visit Lawcadia.com, we may collect information about your visit for statistical purposes, including:

(a) server address;

(b) top level domain name (for example, .com.au, .gov.au, etc)

(c) the date and time of your visit;

(d) the pages you accessed and documents downloaded during your visit;

(e) the length of your visit;

(f) the country, state and city you are in when accessing Lawcadia.com;

(g) the previous site you visited;

(h) search terms that you have used to find Lawcadia.com from search engines including Google and Bing;

(i) if you’ve visited Lawcadia.com before; and

(j) the type of browser used

3.8 Information we receive from other users of Lawcadia.com and third parties

Other users of Lawcadia.com may provide information about you when they submit content through Lawcadia.com. Similarly, an administrator may provide your contact information when they designate you as a contact such as a billing contact on your organisation’s account. We also receive information about you from our third-party service providers such as advertising and analytics service providers.

If any links to third party websites are included on Lawcadia.com, we are not responsible for the content or practices of these third party websites. Any links are provided for your convenience or by companies, law firms or other users of Lawcadia.com for their own purposes, and do not represent our endorsement of any linked third party website. We recommend that you check the privacy policies of such third party websites before providing them with your personal information.

3.9 Information from cookies and other tracking technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies to improve your experience when accessing Lawcadia.com and our services. Cookies are text files that are stored in a computer system via an Internet browser. The information collected by these tools may include the IP address of the device you are using and information about sites from which that IP address has come, the pages accessed on our site and the next site visited. Cookies allow us to better understand our website users. The purpose of this recognition is to make it easier for users to utilise our website.

If you do not want information collected through the use of the technologies described in this section, there is a simple procedure in most Internet browsers that allows you to automatically decline many of these technologies, or to be given the choice of declining or accepting them. If you deactivate the setting of cookies in the Internet browser used, not all functions of our website may be entirely usable.

+For EU users – Consent to use cookies

If you are an individual residing in the European Union (EU) or any other jurisdiction that requires us to obtain your consent to use cookies on our website, then you will have an opportunity to manage your consent preference on our website; except that certain cookies are required to enable core site functionality, and you cannot opt-out or choose to disable those cookies.

For more details about this type of data collection, please refer to our Cookie Declaration.

4. How do we use your personal information?

4.1 How we use your personal information depends in part on how you use Lawcadia.com and any preferences you have communicated to us. Below are the purposes for which we use the information we collect about you:

(a) To provide access to Lawcadia.com and our services and personalise your experience

We use information about you to provide Lawcadia.com and our services to you, including to process transactions with you, authenticate you when you log in, provide customer support, and operate and maintain Lawcadia.com.

Lawcadia.com also includes features that personalise your experience and improve your ability to collaborate effectively with other users. For example, we may use your stated job title to return search results we think are relevant to your job function. We also use information about you to connect you with other users seeking subject matter expertise. We may use your email domain to infer your affiliation with a particular organisation or industry to personalise the content and experience you receive on Lawcadia.com.

(b) To answer your enquiries and deliver customer support

We use your personal information to resolve technical issues you encounter, to respond to your requests for assistance, to manage and resolve complaints and to repair and improve Lawcadia.com and any of our services.

(c) To communicate to you about Lawcadia.com and our services

We use your contact information to send transactional communications via email and within Lawcadia.com, including reminding you of subscription expirations, responding to your comments, questions and requests, providing customer support, and sending you technical notices, updates, security alerts, and administrative messages. We also send you communications as you onboard to Lawcadia.com to help you become more proficient in using Lawcadia.com and our services. These communications are part of our services and in most cases, you cannot opt out of them. If an opt out is available, you will find that option with the communication itself or in your account settings.

(d) To market, promote and drive engagement with Lawcadia.com and our services that think might be of interest to you

We will also use your contact information and information about how you use Lawcadia.com including the locale indicated by your Internet Protocol (IP) address to send promotional communications that may be of specific interest to you, including by email, mail, telephone or SMS and by displaying Lawcadia ads on other companies’ websites and applications, as well as on platforms like Facebook and Google. These communications are aimed at driving engagement and maximising what you get out of using Lawcadia.com and our services, including information about new features, survey requests and newsletters. We also communicate with you about new service offers, promotions and contests. You can control whether you receive these communications by opting out as described directly below.

You may opt-out of receiving marketing information from us by using the unsubscribe link within each email, updating your email preferences within your account settings menu, or by contacting us as provided in Section 10 below to have your contact information removed from our email subscription list or registration database.

(e) To maintain and improve Lawcadia.com and our services

We are always looking for ways to make Lawcadia.com smarter, integrated and useful to you. We use collective learnings about how people use Lawcadia.com and our services and feedback provided directly to us to conduct market research and analysis, to troubleshoot and identify trends, usage, activity patterns and areas for improvement in our services and Lawcadia.com. For this purpose, we also may use your personal information to carry out internal functions including training, market research and analysis.

We collect and analyse information on an anonymous or non-attributable basis to allow us to gain insights into the behaviour and business practices of companies, law firms and users which may be valuable to companies and the legal industry. Much of this information will help us to provide useful information and advice to companies, law firms and others of behaviours in relation to the procurement and provision of legal services.

(f) To meet our legal and regulatory obligations and protect our legitimate business interests and legal rights

Where required by law or where we believe it is necessary to protect our legal rights, interests and the interests of others, we may use information about you in connection with legal claims, compliance, regulatory, and audit functions, and disclosures in connection with the acquisition, merger or sale of a business. We also use your information to consider job applicants for current and future employment and to manage our relationships with companies, law firms and other users of Lawcadia.com.

(g) To promote safety and security

We use information about you and your use of Lawcadia.com and any other of our services to verify accounts and activity, to monitor suspicious or fraudulent activity and to identify violations of this Policy.

(h) To undertake activities for which we have obtained your consent

We use information about you where you have given us consent to do so for a purpose not listed above. For example, we may publish testimonials or featured law firm or client stories to promote Lawcadia.com, with your permission.

+For EU users – Legal bases for processing

If you are an individual residing in the EU, we collect and process information about you only where we have legal bases for doing so under applicable EU laws. The legal bases depend on how you use Lawcadia.com and the services you use. We collect and use your information only where:

(a) we need it to provide Lawcadia.com and our services, including to operate Lawcadia.com, provide customer support and personalised features and protect the safety and security of Lawcadia.com;

(b) it satisfies a legitimate interest (which is not overridden by your data protection interests), such as for research and development purposes to maintain and improve Lawcadia.com and our services, to promote and market Lawcadia.com and to protect our legal rights and interests;

(c) you give us consent to do so for a specific purpose for example where you subscribe to our e-newsletter or request or download our publications; or

(d) we need to process your data to comply with a legal obligation.

If you have consented to our use of information about you for a specific purpose, you have the right to change your mind at any time, but this will not affect any processing that has already taken place. Where we are using your information because we or a third party (such as your employer) have a legitimate interest to do so, you have the right to object to that use though, in some cases, this may mean no longer using Lawcadia.com.

5. Who do we share your personal information with?

5.1  We disclose personal information to:

(a) our contractors, agents and service providers;

(b) other users of Lawcadia.com as permitted by the functionality of Lawcadia.com or the settings that we have made available on Lawcadia.com – including:

(i)    the names, contact details, expertise and experience of law firm partners to any companies to whom they submit a tender response;

(ii)    the names and contact details of company representatives will be disclosed to any law firm partners who are requested by that company representative to provide a proposal; and

(iii)   ratings information about law firms and partners will be disclosed to companies and other users in accordance with our Ratings Policy;

(c) such third parties as expressly permitted in our Terms and Conditions for Law Firms, if you are a law firm user, or in our Terms and Conditions for Corporate and Government Clients, if you are a company or government user;

(d) any person that you consent to us disclosing your personal information; and

(e) governmental or regulatory authorities, whether in Australia or elsewhere, having jurisdiction over us, Lawcadia.com or any of our services, or any companies, law firms or other users of Lawcadia.com or any of our services.

5.2 We may disclose personal information overseas to provide our services and we will generally do so only where we need to disclose such information to third parties as listed above.

 6. How do we protect your personal information?

6.1 We use data hosting service provider, Amazon Web Services, in Australia to host the information we collect, and we use technical measures to secure the information we collect. While we implement reasonable safeguards designed to protect your information, no security system is impenetrable and due to the inherent nature of the Internet, we cannot guarantee that data, during transmission through the Internet or while stored on our systems, is absolutely safe.

7. Where is your personal information hosted and processed?

7.1 The Lawcadia platform to which your personal information is sent, is provided by Lawcadia and is hosted by a trusted third-party service provider in Australia.

7.2 If your personal information is accessed from or transferred to locations outside the country in which you provide it, we will implement appropriate measures to ensure that your personal information remains protected and secure and otherwise comply with applicable data protection laws.

7.3 Our Ratings Policy sets out how and when we may amend ratings information about particular partners and law firms that is submitted using our Ratings System.

8. Your personal information rights

8.1 You have certain choices available to you when it comes to your personal information. You have the right to ask for access to personal information that we hold about you, and ask that we correct that personal information. You can ask for access or correction by contacting us using the details provided in section 10 below. If you ask, we will give you access to your personal information, and take reasonable steps to correct it if we consider it is incorrect, unless we are permitted or required not to do so under applicable law.

8.2 We will ask you to verify your identity before we give you access to your information or correct it. If we refuse to give you access to or correct your personal information, we will notify you and give you reasons why.

8.3 If we make a correction and we have disclosed incorrect information about you to others, you can ask us to tell them about the correction. We will do so unless there is a valid reason why not to do so.

8.4 If we refuse to correct your personal information, you can ask us to associate with it (for example, attach or link) a statement that you believe the information is incorrect and why.

8.5 You can request access to personal information that we hold about you by contacting our Privacy Officer using the details provided in section 10 below and we will generally provide you with access, subject to certain exceptions permitted by law.

8.6 We may refuse access to your personal information in various circumstances, including where:

(a) providing access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of others;

(b) the request is frivolous or vexatious;

(c) the information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings and would not be accessible by the process of discovery in those proceedings;

(d) giving access would reveal our intentions in relation to negotiations with you in such a way as to prejudice those negotiations;

(e) providing access would be unlawful;

(f) denying access is required by or under any applicable law;

(g) we have reason to suspect that unlawful activity, or misconduct of a serious nature, that relates to our functions or activities has been, is being or may be engaged in and giving access would be likely to prejudice the taking of appropriate action in relation to the matter;

(h) giving access would be likely to prejudice enforcement related activities conducted by or on behalf of an enforcement body;

(i) providing access would be likely to prejudice enforcement related activities conducted by an enforcement body;

(j) giving access would reveal evaluative information generated within our organisation with a commercially sensitive decision-making process.

+For EU users – your rights

If you are an individual residing in the EU, you have the right under the General Data Protection Regulation to request from Lawcadia access to and rectification or erasure of your personal information, data portability, restriction of processing of your personal information, the right to object to processing of your personal information and the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

To request access to or rectification, portability or erasure of your personal information, or to delete your Lawcadia account, please contact our Privacy Officer using the details provided in section 10 below. If you live in the EU and you wish to exercise your right to restriction of processing or your right to object to processing, contact our Privacy Officer using the details provided in section 10 below.

9. Notification to end users

Where our services are made available to you through an organisation (e.g. your employer), that organisation is the administrator of our services and is responsible for the accounts and/or service sites over which it has control. Where this is the case, please direct your data privacy questions to your administrator, as your use of our services is subject to your organisation’s policies. We are not responsible for the privacy or security practices of your organisation, which may be different to this policy.

10. How to contact us  

We welcome your comments regarding this Policy. If you have any questions or complaints about this Policy or any of our privacy-related practices, please contact us:

(a) online at: [email protected]; or

(b) by mail at: PO Box 12822, George Street, Brisbane QLD 4003, Australia

We will try to respond to you as soon as we can. If you’re concerned about your privacy and make a complaint by notifying us as per above, we’ll do our best to sort it out. For your information, we will keep a record of your complaint, respond to your complaint within a few days if we can, or tell you if we need more time to look into it and we will keep you updated on what we’re doing to resolve your complaint as well as let you know when we believe your complaint is resolved.

If you’re not satisfied with how we manage your enquiry or complaint, you can also contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner via visiting oaic.gov.au.

11. Interpretation  

(a) “Lawcadia.com” means our online website made available at Lawcadia.com and includes all associated websites, microsites, databases, software and back end systems;

(b) “Ratings Policy” means our ratings policy available at lawcadia.com/Ratings Policy;

(c) “Terms and Conditions for Companies” means our terms and conditions applicable to companies that are registered to use Lawcadia.com and are available on request: [email protected];

(d) “Terms and Conditions for Law Firms” means our terms and conditions applicable to law firms that are registered to use Lawcadia.com and are available on request: [email protected].