Privacy Policy

MM Legal Pty Ltd t/as Mendelawitz Morton (ABN 46 111 414 629)
Last Updated: 19 November 2024

Welcome to the website of Mendelawitz Morton (MM, we, us, or our). MM understands that privacy and how we collect, use, disclose and protect your information is important to you. We are committed to ensuring the privacy of your information and to complying with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), which are contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act).

This Policy details how we will collect, use and disclose “personal information” is information or an opinion (whether true or not) about an identified or reasonably identifiable individual.

1. What Personal Information does MM collect and hold?

MM is a corporate Australian law firm. The types of personal information that MM collects will depend on the nature of your dealings with us. Please note that, while we seek to minimise the personal information we collect, if you do not provide us with the personal information we request we may not be able to provide you with the services, information or other assistance you seek.

We may collect personal information from you where:

(a) you or the company that you work for engage our services (legal or otherwise);

(b) you correspond with our employees or Directors;

(c) you have business dealings with us (whether as one of our suppliers or as a regulator we deal with or in the context of a transaction);

(d) you or the company that you work for is a counterparty or provides services to a counterparty of our client;

(e) you apply or register your interest for employment or a work placement opportunity with MM (see section 8 of this Policy);

(f) you otherwise provide your personal information to us, such as where you supply your business card to us; or

(g) it is required by law to do so.

For detailed information as to how we collect, use and disclose the personal information of job applicants, please refer to section 8 of this Policy. The personal information we will collect from you may include your name, title, address and e-mail address and contact numbers (telephone and mobile). If necessary for the purposes of providing advice to you or for providing you with other information (such as email updates) sometimes we may collect other personal information from you, such as the areas of our practice or related expertise which you are interested in. However, we endeavour not to collect personal information that we do not need.

Generally we endeavour to collect personal information directly from the individuals concerned. However, if this is not practical we may collect personal information about individuals from third parties, including from publicly available sources. If we do, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the individuals concerned are made aware of the collection of their information.

If you are one of MM’s ‘business contacts’ (e.g. a person working for one of our clients, suppliers, in a government agency or other company with which we deal when you correspond with one of our employees, Directors or a contact person in one of our suppliers, in a government agency or company with which we deal) we may collect basic business contact information from you (e.g. your name, title and work contact details) automatically using the details in your email signature.

MM will not ask to collect sensitive information about you (such as details of your racial or ethnic origin, political affiliation, religious beliefs, sexual preferences, gender identity, criminal convictions or health information) except where it is needed for the purposes of providing legal services or another reason for which we have your consent and collection is necessary for that purpose.

2. How does MM use Personal Information?

MM’s policy is only to use personal information collected from business contacts for the business purpose for which it was collected, or as otherwise provided for in this policy. Personal information collected from other persons (such as prospective employees, subscriber to our knowledge services, etc) is similarly used to fulfil the purposes for which information was collected in the first place, or occasionally for reasonably related purposes.

MM may use your personal information:

(a) to provide you with our products and services;

(b) in connection with the fulfillment of a legal or regulatory obligation;

(c) to send legal or other updates relevant to us or you and to market our products and services to you;

(d) in connection with your job application (see section 8 of this Policy);

(e) where we have a legitimate interest that is not overridden by your rights under the law;

(f) for any reason that you (or your organisation) has provided consent;

(g) if you are a client, then where we have a job applicant or employee that we believe may be suitable for a role in your company;

(h) for the performance of a contract with you or your company;

(i) to respond to any enquiries or complaints; and,

(j) to conduct our business.

We also collect personal information so that we can communicate new legal or firm developments, including advertising products or services (including events) that we offer to our clients and to those people who have subscribed to our website, alert services or mailing lists.

If at any time you do not wish to receive these kinds of communications, please let us know using the contact details set out in section 9 below.

3. Will Your Personal Information be given to anyone else?

MM does not sell or trade personal information about you to or with third parties. Personal information may be disclosed to others by MM in the circumstances described below:

(a) Disclosures to external service providers
MM may disclose personal information to external service providers who provide services to you or us, including those who help us operate our business.

Examples of our external service providers include: third party data storage providers:

(i) IT and other software and systems providers; companies who provide photocopying and archiving services;

(ii) advertising and marketing agencies who assist us with our campaigns and programs; and,

(iii) research organisations and consultants who conduct research on our behalf.

If MM engages external service providers, MM takes steps to ensure that those external service providers: comply with the APPs when they handle personal information about you; and, are authorised only to use personal information that we provide to them for the purposes specified in our agreement with them.

(b) Disclosures overseas

Where MM engages external information technology service providers, we ensure that wherever practical our data is stored within Australia. Some of our vendors may however store data in overseas locations such as the UK, New Zealand, USA, and South Africa. In applicable situations MM shall take reasonable steps to ensure that any overseas recipient does not breach the APPs in relation to that information in accordance with good industry practice. Such overseas disclosures are only made in connection with the primary purpose for which the personal information has been collected.

(c) Disclosures required or permitted by law

Otherwise than in the situations described above, MM will only disclose personal information if this is required or permitted by law including under the Privacy Act. Importantly as a regulated legal service provider MM is bound by stringent professional obligations of confidentiality, including in relation to personal information.

4. Security of Personal Information

MM takes reasonable steps to ensure the security of your personal information. Our premises are in secure buildings with access restricted to authorised personnel. MM engages an external IT consultancy to ensure our IT systems are secured against external threats by various means, password protected and tested through regular audit and data integrity checks. We frequently update our anti-virus software in order to protect our systems (and the data contained in those systems) from computer viruses. In addition, al MM employees are required to treat personal information held by MM as confidential.

5. Your Rights

Under the Privacy Act, you have the right to:

(a) seek access to your personal information handled by MM;

(b) ask us to update or correct your personal information when it is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date; and

(c) opt-out of receiving direct marketing communications from us.

If you wish to access the personal information that MM holds about you, please set out your request in writing and forward this to our Privacy Manager using the contact details set out at
the end of this Policy. To provide you with access to your personal information held by us on our current records, MM can provide you with a copy of the relevant personal information (ordinarily, an electronic print-out or a photocopy). MM will not charge you for the cost of providing this type of access to these current records.

For legal and administrative reasons MM may also archive non-current records containing personal information such as back up data files and offsite storage. Please note that if we do provide access to old records we may charge you for the cost of providing such access. If you are of the view that personal information about you is inaccurate or out of date, or if you have any other queries about access and correction, please contact our Privacy Manager using the contact details set out in section 9 below.

6. Online Privacy Issues

Use of cookies

When you visit our website, a small data file called a "cookie" may be stored on your internet enabled device. We use cookies or similar digital markers to maintain user sessions and track the behaviour of website visitors. This enables us to keep our site relevant and useful. However, generally this information will not identify you. We do not link this information back to your identity or other information that you have provided to us. We and our service providers may also use cookies and other digital markers (e.g. Clear GIFs’) to assist us with our online marketing services and advertise to our website visitors on other third-party websites or platforms (e.g. Google Ads Services or LinkedIn). Cookies placed on third party websites would be to help us to monitor the efficacy of our business relationships with third parties, improve performance as well as personalise your experience when you visit our and our service providers’ websites. MM may but is unlikely to disclose the information collected via use of cookies on our websites to third parties for marketing purposes.

By using our website and not opting out of cookies, you consent to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of this Policy. Most web browsers are set by default to accept cookies. However, if you do not wish to receive cookies you may set your browser to either prompt or refuse cookies. If you use your browser settings to block all cookies, you may not be able to access and/or use all or parts of our website.

You should read this Policy with our Cookies Policy.

7. Making a complaint or expressing a concern

If you wish to make a complaint or express a concern about how MM handles your personal information, please contact us setting out your complaint in writing and forward it to our Privacy Manager using the contact details in section 9 of this Policy. We will deal with all requests for access to personal information or complaints as quickly as possible and will endeavour to get back to you within a reasonable timeframe. If you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint or concern you can make a formal complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner through their website at https://www.oaic.gov.au/, by emailing enquiries@oaic.gov.au.

8. How do we handle the personal information of individuals?

MM collects information about and from individuals who make enquiries or apply for employment with MM. The information we collect may include an individual’s personal information and includes the individuals:

(a) contact details;

(b) educational and employment history and relevant qualifications; and,

(c) reason for enquiry.

In addition, MM may collect any personal information that an individual chooses to disclose during the process of an enquiry or application which could include sensitive information. If you do not provide with us the information that we request we may not be able to process or assess your enquiry.

9. Additional Privacy Information and How to Contact MM

This MM Privacy Policy may change from time to time. The MM Privacy Policy will be made available to anyone who requests it, whether at our offices or via our website. If you have any questions or comments about the MM Privacy Policy, please set out your request in writing, and forward this to our Privacy Manager, using the contact details below.

Email: privacy@mmcl.com.au

Post: PO Box 501 West Perth WA 6872

Telephone: +61 8 9481 8811