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Privacy Policy for Lawyers

In a nutshell

In order to register, we only need your name and e-mail address and for your lawyer profile your jurisdiction and practice area. All other information is voluntary.

You have full control over your matter list and can change, delete or unpublish matters at any time.

To have matters confirmed by your client (optional), you do not need to provide us with matter details. You yourself send a link to your client. The client then gives his contact details directly to us and decides for himself whether and which of his information may be published. We delete all contact data of the client after confirmation unless the client has explicitly agreed to the publication.

This privacy policy for lawyers is intended for lawyers who register on matterius and it 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. User account
3. Lawyer profile
4. Matter descriptions
5. Confirmation of matters by clients
6. Billing

1.Scope

The following special privacy policy for lawyers is intended for registered attorneys and supplements the general privacy policy for website visitors, which applies to all visitors of our website.

2. User account

2.1 Account

To use matterius as a lawyer, you need a user account. Within the registration you must enter your name and e-mail address. Together with the user account, we collect information about your membership (e.g. duration, type of membership: Premium/Basic, voucher code used, if applicable).

2.2 E-mail address

You must provide your business (law firm) email address. We will send an email to it with a confirmation link to ensure that you are the owner of the email address provided. We use your e-mail address:

  • to verify your identity and ensure that you are working at the specified law firm
  • for contract and system-related messages, e.g. in the event of a password reset, status messages on matters confirmed by your client, expiry of a premium membership or information on changes to the privacy policy
  • for contract and service-related information, e.g. notice of new or changed functionalities, reminder to maintain your case list or notice of unpublished matters
  • if you have subscribed to our matterius legal newsletter, to send the newsletter to you (see section 4 of the general privacy policy).

Your email address is only publicly visible to others if you have set this in your profile.

2.3 Deactivation and deletion

You can deactivate your user account at any time: Your profile and matters remain saved but are no longer publicly visible on matterius.

If you no longer wish to use your user account, you can delete it. Your profile and all matters will then be permanently deleted.

3. Lawyer profile

In the lawyer profile you can enter information about yourself, your law firm and expertise as well as the focus of your work. Except for a few mandatory details (currently only "jurisdiction" and "practice area"), all information is voluntary. Your lawyer profile is publicly visible.

4. Matter descriptions

4.1 Contents

You can describe your cases, transactions, disputes, contractual arrangements or other consultations on matterius in the form of matters. Required fields are marked as such, currently these are:

  • Label (internal, will not be published)
  • Description of the client (not: name of the client)
  • Headline

You write the content of the matter description yourself and can change or delete it at any time. If you change a matter after it has been confirmed by the client, the status "confirmed by client" expires.

4.2 Publication

You can define for each matter whether it is public or not (draft) and also change the publication status at any time later, even if the matter has been confirmed by the client. The following fields are not published in any case: "label", "internal comments".

5. Confirmation of matters by clients

5.1 Functionality

You can have matters confirmed by your client online on matterius. Confirmed matters are publicly marked as "confirmed by client". The confirmation is optional, you can also publish unconfirmed matters on matterius.

5.2 Procedure

After you have described the matter, click on "Ask client to confirm matter" and send an individual link to your contact person at the client using your own e-mail program. This link takes the contact person to a page with the matter description, where they can confirm the matter online.

5.3 Contact information of the client

Your contact person specifies e-mail, name, function and company and confirms their e-mail address. Your contact person can determine whether and which of these details should be published with the matter. If he/she does not want the data to be published, it will be deleted immediately after validation and we will only store the fact that the matter was confirmed. Your client does not need to create a user account for validation.

5.4 Validation

We use the domain of the e-mail address ("@companyname.com") to validate whether your contact person works for the client or whether the domain matches the client description (e.g. "@oceanic-arilines.com" for "international airline"). In cases of doubt, we conduct a search, e.g. via Google or on LinkedIn. Thus, a personal contact is usually not necessary. The validation is separated from the other business of matterius in terms of personnel and organization. Managing directors and owners of matterius do not receive access to non-public information.

5.5 Comments and appreciations of the client

Your client can optionally leave a comment on the client work when confirming. This will only be published if you and the client have specified this.

Clients can also optionally express an appreciation about your client work using a list of defined terms (e.g. "pragmatic and practical", "solution-oriented", "good industry knowledge"). This appreciation is public.

5.6 Our privacy policy for clients

For more information on how we handle client information from the confirmation process, please see our special privacy policy for clients.

6. Billing

6.1 Accounting data

If you have ordered a paid premium membership, we collect your billing information. These include:

  • Invoice details (e.g. address, contact person if applicable, invoice address, contact details, VAT ID)
  • Payment method and payment data (e.g. bank account details)
  • Payments made

We use the billing data to perform the contract for your usage account and to fulfill our legal retention obligations.

6.2 Third party Voucher Codes

If you have purchased a Voucher Code via a partner, e.g. digistore24 GmbH, the respective partner is the data controller for the processing of the billing data. We may receive access to the billing data from the partner and then use it for contract management, e.g. for any queries regarding payment, cancellations or questions regarding premium membership, as well as for processing the billing between us and the partner.

Status: 1.1.2022