Privacy and Disclaimer Statement

The Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA) is committed to protecting your privacy and developing technology that gives you the most powerful and safe online experience. This Statement of Privacy applies to the PBA website and governs data collection and usage. By using the PBA website, you consent to the data practices described in this statement.

Collection of Your Personal Information

The PBA collects personally identifiable information provided by you such as your email address, name, home or work address or telephone number. The PBA also collects anonymous demographic information, which is not unique to you such as your zip code, age, gender, preferences, interests and favorites.

There is also information about your computer hardware and software that is automatically collected by the PBA. This information can include: your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and referring website addresses. This information is used by the PBA for the operation of the service, to maintain quality of the service and to provide general statistics regarding use of the PBA site.

Please keep in mind that if you directly disclose personally identifiable information or personally sensitive data through the PBA public message boards, this information may be collected and used by others. Note: The PBA does not read any of your private online communications.

The PBA encourages you to review the privacy statements of websites you choose to link to from the PBA so that you can understand how those websites collect, use and share your information. The PBA is not responsible for the privacy statements or other content on websites outside of the PBA and the PBA family of websites.

Use of Your Personal Information

The PBA collects and uses your personal information to operate the PBA website and deliver the services you have requested. The PBA also uses your personally identifiable information to inform you of other products or services available from the PBA and its affiliates. The PBA may also contact you via surveys to conduct research about your opinion of current services or of potential new services that may be offered.

The PBA may, from time to time, contact you on behalf of external business partners about a particular offering that may be of interest to you. In addition, the PBA may share data with trusted partners to help us perform statistical analysis, send you email or postal mail, provide customer support, or arrange for deliveries. All such third parties are prohibited from using your personal information except to provide these services to the PBA, and they are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information.

The PBA does not disclose sensitive personal information such as race without your explicit consent.

The PBA keeps track of the websites and pages our customers visit within the PBA, in order to determine which PBA services are the most popular. This data is used to deliver customized content and advertising within the PBA to customers whose behavior indicates that they are interested in a particular subject area.

PBA websites will disclose your personal information, without notice, only if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on the PBA or the website; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of the PBA; and, (c) act under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of the PBA, or the public.

Use of Cookies

The PBA website uses "cookies" to help you personalize your online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a webpage server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalize the PBA pages or register with PBA website or services, a cookie helps the PBA to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of recording your personal information such as billing addresses, shipping addresses and so on. When you return to the same PBA website, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the PBA features that you customized.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the PBA services or websites you visit.

Security of Your Personal Information

The PBA secures your personal information from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. The PBA secures the personally identifiable information you provide on computer servers in a controlled, secure environment, protected from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. When personal information (such as a credit card number) is transmitted to other websites, it is protected through the use of encryption such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol.

Changes to This Statement

The PBA will occasionally update this Statement of Privacy to reflect association and member feedback. The PBA encourages you to periodically review this statement to be informed of how the PBA is protecting your information.

Contact Information

The PBA welcomes your comments regarding this Statement of Privacy. If you believe that the PBA has not adhered to this statement, please contact the PBA at

[email protected]. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to promptly determine and remedy the problem.

 

Disclaimer and Copyright Statement

The Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA) presents the information on this website as a benefit and service to our members and other internet users. While some information on this site is about legal issues, IT IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. Moreover, unless expressly stated, views and opinions expressed herein have not been approved by the Board of Governors of the PBA and do not necessarily represent the policy of the PBA. In addition, due to the rapidly changing nature of the law and the PBA's use of information provided by outside sources, the PBA makes no warranty or guarantee concerning the accuracy or reliability of any of the content at this site or at other sites to which we link or which may in any respect use or refer to this website or to the PBA or any of its components or members.

If you have a legal problem or question you should contact your attorney. If you do not have an attorney, you should contact your county's bar association or the PBA’s Lawyer Referral Service at 800-692-7375.

Links

The pages on this website contain links to other resources on the internet. Those links are provided as citations and aids to help you identify and locate other internet resources that may be of interest, and are not intended to state or imply that the PBA sponsors, is affiliated or associated with, or is legally authorized to use any trade name, registered trademark, logo, legal or official seal, or copyrighted symbol that may be reflected in the links. Further, the PBA does not intend links to be referrals or endorsements of the linked entities, and the PBA assumes no responsibility for the content of any linked site.

Listservs

This website hosts Listservs, which enable participating members to exchange e-mail concerning a wide variety of management, legal and practice issues. Ideas and comments posted belong to the members who post them and are not those of the PBA. Further, use of any Listserv for any purpose other than the exchange of information and ideas concerning matters related to legal practice is strictly prohibited. The PBA is not responsible for any material posted in any Listserv or elsewhere on this site. The PBA specifically disclaims any and all liability for any claims or damages, which may result from posting by third parties. The PBA does not endorse the opinions or facts posted through any Listserv. You are encouraged to independently validate the information obtained through any Listserv.

Site Availability

The PBA is committed to providing 100 percent availability of its internet site and Listservs. Our website host vendor has redundant systems and procedures to safeguard the site; however even with these safeguards in place, loss of connectivity or software/hardware failure can still occur. For this reason, the PBA cannot "guarantee" its internet connectivity, nor can we be responsible for lost or delayed requests, Listserv messages, email or content.

Copyright

All rights are reserved. All the content of this website posted by the Pennsylvania Bar Association is copyrighted and may be reproduced in any form, including digital and print for any non-commercial purpose, so long as this notice remains visible and attached thereto.

For questions regarding our website being down or any related service outage, please contact our webmaster at [email protected].