Privacy Policy for Clients

In a nutshell

When confirming a matter, we ask you for the following information: business email address, name, company and position.

We use your business email address to validate that you work at the client. Your email will not be published.

Name, company and position will only be published if you explicitly specify this for each individual piece of information.

If we cannot validate from the e-mail address whether you work for the client, we can use the name, company and position for a plausibility check.

Immediately after validation, i.e. usually 72 hours after your matter confirmation, we delete all your data (unless you have explicitly agreed to the publication of individual details).

You do not need a user account to confirm matters.

This privacy policy is intended for clients who confirm matters on matterius and supplements our general  privacy policy for website visitors.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact privacy -at- matterius.com.

Table of contents

1. Scope
2. Confirmation of matters
3. Comments and appreciations
4. User account

1. Scope

The following special privacy policy for clients is intended for contact persons at clients who confirm matters on matterius. They supplement the general privacy policy for website visitors, which applies to all visitors of our website.

2. Confirmation of matters

2.1 Functionality

Lawyers can create a lawyer profile on matterius, describe matters and publish them. Optionally, a lawyer can ask his or her client to confirm the matter, which will then be marked as "confirmed by client". The lawyer sends an individual link to you, his contact person at the client. The link is sent via the lawyer's e-mail program, we do not receive any data about you until then, not even your e-mail address.

2.2 Step one: Confirmation of the matter

With the link you can view the description of the matter and confirm in the first step that the lawyer has provided the legal service and the matter may be published as shown under the link.

If you deny the confirmation, we will inform the lawyer about this, as well as about the reasons you have optionally given. The denial is anonymous for you, we do not request any personal data from you for this purpose.

2.3 Step two: Contact details

If you have confirmed the matter in the first step, we will ask you for the following contact details in the second step:

  • business email address
  • name
  • company, and
  • position

This information is necessary for the completion of the confirmation.

We will send a confirmation link to your e-mail address. Only when you click on this link, the confirmation of the matter is completed. This is to ensure that you are the owner of the email address.

2.4 Validation

We use the domain of your e-mail address to check whether you work for the specified client or whether the domain matches the client description. We therefore need your business e-mail address, which you use when you work for the specified client. Generic addresses (e.g. gmail.com) are not sufficient.

You will not receive any further e-mails or advertising from us, and we will not create a user account (for an optional user account, see section 4).

As a rule, we do not contact you personally within the matter confirmation process. In cases of doubt, if we are unsure whether you work for the client based on the e-mail address, we can use your information for a plausibility check. For example, we can use Google or LinkedIn to determine whether the name, position and company match and, if necessary, contact you directly.

2.5 Visibility of your contact details

We inform the lawyer by e-mail that you have confirmed the matter. In doing so, we provide the lawyer with your contact details. This serves the lawyer to document the confirmation of the matter by you.

Your email address is not publicly visible.

Your name, company and position will only be published if you have explicitly specified this for each individual item when confirming the matter. Otherwise, the matter is only marked abstractly as "Confirmed by client" together with the month and year of the confirmation.

2.6 Storage period

After completion of the validation pursuant to section 2.4, which is generally within 72 hours after your confirmation of the matter, we will delete your contact data, except for those details for which you have expressly expressed in the matter confirmation that they are to be published together with the matter. In the latter case, the data will remain stored as long as the matter is published on matterius. If you wish to have the matter deleted, please contact the lawyer directly, he or she can delete the matter or unpublish it at any time.

2.7 Legal basis

The legal basis for the data processing is the performance of the agreement concluded between you and us, with which you confirm the matter and allow us and the lawyer to publish it.

3. Comments and appreciations

You can optionally enter a comment on the matter in step two of the matter confirmation. This comment will only be published if you and the lawyer agree to it. Without your consent, the comment is only visible to the lawyer.

In addition, you can express an appreciation of the lawyer's client work based on a given list (e.g. "pragmatic and practical", "solution-oriented", "good knowledge of the industry"). These appreciations will always be published.

Comments and appreciations are displayed together with the matter. Your contact data (name, position, company) will only be stored and displayed if you have explicitly specified when confirming the matter that each individual piece of information is to be published.

4. User account

You do not need a user account to confirm matters. However, you have the option to create one following the matter confirmation. We will then take the e-mail address and contact details from the matter confirmation and save them in your user account. Optionally, you can specify the jurisdiction and areas of law that you are interested in.

If you later confirm a matter on matterius, you can log in with your user account and then do not have to enter your details in the form again or reconfirm your email address again. Within each matter confirmation, you can individually determine whether and which information should be published with the matter.

In addition, we use your e-mail address and data to send you our legal newsletter based on your interests (see section 4 of our privacy policy for website visitors). In this respect, the legal basis is the performance of the contract. You can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time.

To protect the confidentiality of the client-lawyer relationship, matters confirmed by you will not be linked to your user account. Your contact data will only be displayed and stored for a matter if and to the extent that you have expressly specified this for the respective matter when confirming it.

The information in your user account is not publicly visible.

Your user account will remain until you delete it.

Status: 1.1.2022