Severance Law®

PRIVACY POLICY

Severance Law, owner of the website located at www.SeveranceLaw.com (the “Website”), respects the privacy of every individual and is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy (the “Privacy Policy”) provides information on the manner in which your personal information obtained through your use of the Website is processed and used on this Website. SEVERANCE LAW uses your personal information only in ways that are compatible with this Privacy Policy. In addition to reviewing this Privacy Policy, please read our Terms and Conditions of Use. Your use of the Website constitutes your agreement to be bound by the Terms and Conditions of Use and this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to the Terms and Conditions of Use and this Privacy Policy, you should not use this Website.

Disclaimer of Advice.  SEVERANCE LAW is a legal services provider admitted to practice law only in the jurisdiction(s) noted in the biographical information on the Website. The material available on this site is for information purposes only, does not constitute legal advice and is not intended as a substitute for legal counsel. At any time you have questions regarding a specific situation, you should seek the advice of a professional. Reliance upon any opinion or advice provided on the Website is at your own risk. Neither SEVERANCE LAW nor any of its personnel assume liability or responsibility for damage or injury to person or property arising from any use of any service, information, or Content (as defined below) contained on this Website.

Your use of this site, sending an e-mail or otherwise contacting us does not create an attorney-client relationship.  A person may become a client of SEVERANCE LAW only through a written engagement letter between that person and SEVERANCE LAW. The hiring of a lawyer is an important decision that should not be based solely upon the information included on this Website.

Information Collected and Used.  You may visit this site anonymously as often as you like without providing any personal identifiers (such as your name, address, or e-mail address). We do not require you to register or provide information to us in order to view our site.  The categories of personal information or potentially personally identifying information we or our service providers may collect and use the following categories of information:

  1. Identifiers and other personal information such as your name, address, email address, telephone number.
  2. Internet or other network activity, such as information concerning your interaction with the site.

SEVERANCE LAW may collect identifiers and personal information from you if you provide personal data voluntarily through our Website or by email. SEVERANCE LAW requires personal identifiers (such as your name, address, or e-mail address) and personal information, for example, to respond to requests for information or subscriptions to newsletters.  The Website generally does not automatically collect personal identifiers  and will collect personal identifiers only with your specific knowledge and consent. SEVERANCE LAW may collect and store additional usage information such as where, what and when you are searching.  SEVERANCE LAW reserves the right to use information gathered by it for any and all purposes. If you do not wish to have your information shared, write to us at dominick@SeveranceLaw.com. If you do not wish to receive future communications from us by email, simply follow the unsubscribe instructions contained within the email.

Third Party Access.  We also allow access to information we collect by third party service providers that provide us with services, such as technical maintenance or search software, but only for the purpose of and to the extent necessary to provide those services. There also may be an occasion when we are legally required to provide access to our database or other information repositories in order to cooperate with police investigations or other legal proceedings. In those instances, the information is provided only for that purpose. While your individual personal identifiable information is protected as outlined above, we reserve the right to use, transfer, sell, and share aggregated, anonymous data about our website visitors as a group for any business purpose, such as analyzing usage trends and seeking compatible advertisers and partners.

Use of Information.  Your information is stored in a secured database and is used for purposes of providing you with information requested by you or providing for a follow up with you in connection with materials you request allowing us to contact you for administrative purposes; for example, to tell you about changes to our Privacy Policy. The information you provide also may be utilized for market research purposes, for project planning or for development of prospect lists for marketing. Please note that all email that originates from us will either display the www.Severance Law.com domain name or an affiliated domain name. If you receive an unsolicited email that you believe is connected with us in any way, please forward the email (as an attachment) to dominick@SeveranceLaw.com.

Disclosure of Personal Information.  Except as set forth in this Privacy Policy, SEVERANCE LAW does not share, rent or sell personal information about you with other people or companies.  We reserve the right to use in any manner and also to disclose any non-personal information that we collect including, but not limited to, cookie and traffic data.

Third party service providers may assist us with the administration of the site or otherwise perform services on our behalf.  Information about our Website visitors and their activity on the site is a business asset of SEVERANCE LAW. Therefore, information about our Website visitors, including personal information, will be disclosed as part of any merger or acquisition, creation of a separate business to provide the site, our services or fulfill products, sale or pledge of company assets as well as in the event of an insolvency, bankruptcy or receivership in which personal information would be transferred as one of the business assets of the company.

Unsolicited Email (SPAM).  You should be aware, however, that unscrupulous marketers can sometimes “harvest” your email address directly from your computer or another person’s address book or even obtain your email address through programs that automatically search web pages and email traffic for email addresses. SEVERANCE LAW also may disclose or exchange with others information you have provided to us if we believe that the law requires us to do so or if it is necessary to protect the rights or property of SEVERANCE LAW, our affiliate companies, our staff, or our website visitors.

Information Automatically Collected.  In addition, we automatically receive and collect certain types of information whenever you visit our website.  For example, like many websites, we use “cookies” and web beacons to obtain certain types of information when your web browser accesses and goes through our website.  We use this information to monitor and understand the usage and performance of our website, to enhance our Website visitors’ search experiences and to determine aggregate information about our Website visitor base and usage patterns – all of this helps us make improvements to the Website.  We may permit third parties to place programs on our site to monitor the effectiveness of advertising or for other legitimate purposes. If you do not want any cookies, your web browser likely includes an option that allows you to not accept them. However, if you set your browser to refuse cookies, some portions of the Website may not function properly.

IP Address.  Your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address is usually associated with the place from which you enter the Internet, like your Internet Service Provider, your company or your university. We may use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, gather broad demographic information, and administer our website.  We also use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer our website, and to communicate with you after you have sent us emails.

Do Not Track.  SEVERANCE LAW does not track its Website visitors over time and across third party websites in order to provide targeted advertising. SEVERANCE LAW therefore does not respond to Do Not Track (DNT) signals. However, some third party sites do keep track of your browsing activities when they serve you content, which enables them to tailor information that is presented to you. If you are visiting third party sites, you should become familiar with the sites tracking policies. SEVERANCE LAW makes no representations and accepts no responsibility for the tracking activities of any third party.

Security.  SEVERANCE LAW will use reasonable precautions to keep the information disclosed to us secure and not to disclose such information to any unauthorized third parties. However, we are not responsible for any breach of security or for any actions of any third parties that may receive the information. SEVERANCE LAW takes commercially reasonable and appropriate measures (as determined in its sole and absolute discretion) to limit access to your personal information to people who need it to do their job. For example, if we need to mail something to you, we must share your name and address with a direct mail company. We limit such third party service providers in their access and use of your personal information. We cannot guarantee the protection of information against interception, misappropriation, misuse, or alteration or that your information may not be disclosed or accessed by accidental circumstances or by the unauthorized acts of others.  We have no control over the security of other sites on the Internet you might visit, interact with, or from which you buy products or services.

Linked Web Sites.  Our website includes links to other websites operated and maintained by separate companies. We have no responsibility for linked websites and provide these links solely for the convenience and information of our visitors.  Those websites may have different privacy policies. If you click through to another website, you should check the privacy policy of that website, which will usually (but not always) be posted on the website. SEVERANCE LAW is not responsible for the privacy policies of other sites.

Children.  This Website is directed to adults and is not directed to children under the age of 18.  SEVERANCE LAW complies with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and does not permit registration by and will not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13.  Minors between the ages of 13 and 17 must obtain the permission of their parent or legal guardian before submitting applications, making purchases, or obtaining subscriptions on this Website. If your children disclose information about themselves in publicly accessible areas of the Website, they may receive unsolicited messages from other parties. Accordingly, you should tell them not to do so.

California Law.  This Website is created and maintained in the State of California, USA. As such, the laws of the State of California govern this Privacy Policy without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of laws that would allow for the law of any other jurisdiction to be applied. In the event of any dispute relating to the Website, you consent to the personal jurisdiction of courts (state and federal) sitting in the State of California, acknowledge that venue is only proper in the courts in San Diego, California and waive any objection you may have in the future with respect to any of the foregoing.

Use of the Website is not authorized in any jurisdiction that does not give full effect to all provisions of this Privacy Policy, including, but not limited to, disclaimers and limitations of liability. In the event any provision of this Privacy Policy is determined to be invalid or unenforceable in any jurisdiction, the remaining terms shall continue in full force and effect in that jurisdiction, and a determination of invalidity or unenforceability in one jurisdiction shall not affect the Privacy Policy in any other jurisdiction.

If any provision of this Privacy Policy is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties’ intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of this Privacy Policy remain in full force and effect.

Your Consent.  By using our website, you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of information in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy. By using our website, you should also be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit can be read, collected, or used by other website visitors, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to submit through your use of the Website.  If your personally identifiable information changes, or if you no longer desire our service, you may correct, update, delete or deactivate it by logging into your account or by emailing our Privacy Policy Coordinator at dominick@SeveranceLaw.com.

We reserve the right to modify or amend this Privacy Policy at any time in our sole and absolute discretion.  If we change our Privacy Policy, we will post any changes on this page and your continued use of the Website constitutes your acceptance and agreement to any revisions to our Privacy Policy.

Rights and Choices for California Residents.  The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) provides California residents with specific rights regarding their personal information. This section describes California residents’ CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights.  If you are a resident of a state other than California, we may respond to requests in ways that differ from responses that are required only under California law.

Access to Specific Information and Data Portability Rights.  You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months. Once we receive and confirm your request, we will disclose to you:

  1. The categories of personal information we collected about you.
  2. The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you.
  3. Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that personal information.
  4. The categories of third parties with whom we share that personal information.
  5. The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you.
  6. For your personal information we sold or disclosed for a business purpose, two separate lists disclosing:
    1. for sales, a list identifying the personal information categories; and
    2. for disclosures for a business purpose, a list identifying the personal information categories.

Deletion Request Rights.  You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your consumer request, we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies. We may deny your deletion request in order for us to comply with applicable laws or under other exceptions.  If we deny your deletion request in whole or in part, we will notify you.

Only you or a person registered with the California Secretary of State that you authorize to act on your behalf, may make a consumer request related to your personal information. You may also make a consumer request on behalf of your minor child.

Verification and Response Timing.  You may only make a request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period. The consumer request must provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative.  Our processes for verifying requests include matching identifying information that we already have on record to provide services to the Website visitors.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you. Making a consumer request does not require you to create an account with us.  We will only use personal information provided in a consumer request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make the request.

We endeavor to respond to a consumer request within 45 days of its receipt.  If we require more time (up to 90 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing.  Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding the consumer request’s receipt.  The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable.  We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded.  If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

Right to Opt-Out.  You have the right to opt-out of us selling your personal information.  We do not sell personal information to third parties, and as such you are already opted-out without any further action required of you.

For more information about Severance Law, PC, or to make requests under the CCPA, please contact us by mail at the address below or by our email form. If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy or terms of use, do not hesitate to contact us at the address listed above.

If you have other concerns or questions about any aspect of this Privacy Policy, you may email our Privacy Policy Coordinator at dominick@SeveranceLaw.com or you may contact us at the following address or telephone number:

Privacy Policy Coordinator
Severance Law, PC
2173 Salk Ave Suite 250,
Carlsbad, CA 92008
(442) 287-0780

Effective December 1, 2023