From January 1, 2004, all businesses engaged in commercial activities must comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the protection of personal information, which it incorporates. These obligations extend to lawyers and law firms. The Act gives you certain rights concerning the privacy of your personal information.
Dewart Gleason LLP (“DGLLP”) is committed to maintaining the accuracy, security and privacy of personal information in compliance with applicable legislation and the Rules of Professional Conduct of the Law Society of Ontario. This policy outlines our practices with regard to the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information. From time to time, DGLLP may review and revise this Privacy Policy, within its sole discretion, and without any notice. You are responsible for visiting this Privacy Policy in order to determine if any changes have been made.
In this Privacy Policy, “Personal information” is information about an identified individual, or an individual whose identity may be inferred or determined from the information. The term “personal information” does not include any information recorded about more than one individual where the identity of the individuals is not known and cannot be inferred from the information (being “aggregated information”). DGLLP retains the right to use aggregated information in any way that it reasonably determines is appropriate.
Generally, business contact information is not considered to be personal information.
DGLLP takes the protection of personal information seriously. Our obligations as legal professionals are governed, in part, by rules of professional conduct which impose duties and obligations regarding the confidentiality of the information provided to DGLLP by its clients. We require all professionals, staff, other employees, contractors, and agents who provide services in connection with our delivery of legal and other services to our clients to comply with these obligations.
DGLLP obtains consent from individuals to collect, use, and disclose personal
information where required by law. The way consent is obtained varies depending on the circumstances and the type of personal information collected, and may be given or implied. Wherever possible, DGLLP collects personal information directly from the individual, but it may obtain personal information from other sources, such as insurance companies or other financial institutions, government agencies or registries, the individual’s accountant or the individual’s employer or union in the event DGLLP acts for the individual. In addition, in order to make credit decisions about clients, prevent fraud, check the identity of new clients and prevent money laundering, DGLLP may request personal information from the files of consumer reporting agencies and other databases.
If an individual has voluntarily provided personal information to DGLLP or its service providers and agents, such individual has consented to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information as described in this Privacy Policy and as permitted or required by law, and DGLLP may rely on the fact that such individual has all necessary authority and/or has obtained all necessary consents to enable DGLLP to collect, use and disclose such personal information.
DGLLP will not use personal information for any purpose other than that for which consent was received. If DGLLP seeks to use personal information for purposes other than those for which consent has previously been obtained, or requires personal information for a new purpose, it will obtain the necessary consent from the individual.
Subject to legal and contractual requirements, an individual may refuse or withdraw consent to certain of the identified purposes at any time by contacting the DGLLP Privacy Officer. Individuals are informed of the implications of withdrawing their consent, which may include DGLLP being unable to continue to provide our professional services to the individual.
In general, DGLLP collects and uses personal information from its clients and prospective clients in order to establish, develop and/or manage client relationships, provide professional legal services, fulfill legal duties, avoid conflicts of interest, and develop and manage our business and operations.
We hold this information in strict confidence and do not reveal it to anyone unless expressly or implicitly authorized by the person or organization concerned or where permitted or required by applicable law.
In the course of our relationship with you, DGLLP will need to collect, use and sometimes disclose different types of personal information for various purposes associated with the services we provide as directed by you or your organization. Some examples of personal information that may be collected, used or disclosed include:
The information you provide us must be accurate and up to date. Accordingly, if any of the information you have provided to us changes, please keep us informed and we will amend our records accordingly.
Under certain circumstances, DGLLP may disclose your personal information:
DGLLP does not disclose personal information to any third party to enable them to market their products and services.
DGLLP may collect information in many forms, such as hard/soft copy, electronically, facsimile, telephone conversations/recordings, email, etc., but will only do so by lawful means and only for necessary purposes that have been disclosed to you, are described in this Privacy Policy, or are permitted or required by applicable law.
DGLLP stores personal information in electronic and physical files, located either at our offices, where our premises are secure, or at the offices of our service providers that are secure and to which access is restricted. We utilize technological safeguards such as firewalls and security software to prevent hacking or unauthorized computer access.
Unfortunately, no data transmission over the internet or by email can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, DGLLP cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information transmitted electronically.
In general, you can use our website, www.dgllp.ca, without giving DGLLP any personal information. If you are one of our anonymous visitors, please bear in mind that, as is common on other commercial websites, DGLLP may monitor traffic patterns, site usage and related site information on our website to optimize our web service or improve the information we provide.
At the written request of an individual to DGLLP’s Privacy Officer, such individual may view or edit their personal information as collected by DGLLP. DGLLP will inform such individual of the personal information DGLLP has about them, what it is being used for and, in cases where it has been disclosed, to whom it has been disclosed. The right of access to personal information is not absolute, and access may be denied in one or more of the following circumstances:
If access to personal information is denied, DGLLP shall explain the reason(s) behind such refusal to the individual, as applicable.
Wherever it is legal and practicable to do so, DGLLP may be able to deal with general inquiries without disclosing personal information.
DGLLP is required to confirm the identity of all new clients and may require disclosure of information in respect of certain large cash transactions.
To make a request for access to personal information, an individual can contact the DGLLP Privacy Officer at the address indicated below, with their name and contact details, as well as the nature of the request.
Summary information is available on request, subject to the foregoing limits, but more detailed requests requiring archive or other retrieval costs by be subject to DGLLP’s normal professional and disbursement fees.
Any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy or DGLLP’s handling of personal information should be directed, preferably in writing, to the DGLLP Privacy Officer at:
Privacy Officer
Dewart Gleason LLP
366 Adelaide Street West
Suite 102
Toronto, ON M5V 1R9
Email: privacy@dgllp.ca
Last revised August 2026
