Privacy Policy

Court Buddy’s Site and Services are currently intended solely for use in the United States and U.S. territories. Court Buddy does NOT currently intend to collect data or information from any EU citizens.  Court Buddy takes reasonably available steps to block traffic to, and interaction with, the Site and Services from EU citizens and EU IP addresses; however, no measures are perfect. If you are an EU citizen, please do not use Court Buddy’s Site and Services, or provide information about yourself to Court Buddy.  Any information we may receive from users we believe to be EU citizens will be unilaterally purged from our database. Moreover, in the event that it comes to our attention - from you or any other person or entity - that information regarding an EU citizen has been reported to and/or stored in our database, we will purge that information from our database as well.

Our age restrictions for use of our Site and Services are set forth our Terms of Use.  We do NOT target our Site or Services to persons under the age of 18, and use of the Site and Services are intended only for persons 18 or older.  Court Buddy does NOT currently intend to collect data or information from anyone under 18. Any information we may receive from users we believe to be under 18 will be unilaterally purged from our database.  Moreover, in the event that it comes to our attention - from you or any other person or entity - that information regarding someone under 18 has been reported to and/or stored in our database, we will purge that information from our database as well.

If you are authorized to use our Site and Services, this Privacy Policy is intended to provide you with an overview of what information we collect about you and how we use it, including:

- What type of personal information we collect (for example, names, contact details, addresses, credit card information, email addresses, general information about the type of legal services needed or offered, where those legal services are needed or offered, and so on).

- What we plan to do with the information (for example, we collect it and share it with our other users to facilitate your use of our Site and Services and provide you with matches, monitor it to improve your experience and those of our other users, and we use feedback and reviews you and others give us to improve our Site and Services and may also use reviews in our promotional campaigns).

- How we store the information and take reasonably available steps to keep it secure (for example, through our internal, password-protected database and through encrypted credit card transactions).

- How you can obtain a copy of your personal information, access your account, or have us delete your personal information from our database.

- Describing those third-party service providers that we reasonably anticipate your information might be shared with, and the reason for this (for example, credit card payment processors).

- How we intend to inform you about any changes to our Privacy Policy.

- How we intend to be accountable to you, including letting you know how to contact us if you have any concerns or questions regarding your personal information or our Privacy Policy.

The type of information that we collect and describe for you here under this Privacy Policy consists of personal information, that is, information that identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with you or your household (“Personal Information”).  By way of example, Personal Information that we will describe for you includes but is not limited to: (1) identifiers such as any unique personal identifier or IP address; (2) information of about your characteristics such as race, sex/gender, sexual orientation, genetic information, etc.; (3) commercial information such as records of purchases made or considered; (4) biometric information; (5) professional, employment or education-related information; (6) electronic network activity information, including, browser histories, search history, and any information regarding your interaction with a Web site, application or advertisement; (7) audio, electronic, visual, thermal, and olfactory information; and (8) geolocation data.  Moreover, Personal Information can also include inferential information, meaning, information that is used to create a profile about you reflecting your characteristics, psychological trends, preferences, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities or aptitudes.

Log files. Any time you visit the Site and Services, our servers automatically gather information from your browser (your IP address, browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, a date/time stamp, and the number of clicks) to analyze trends in use, administer the Site, prevent fraud, track visitor movement on the Site, and gather broad demographic information. For example, we log your IP address for system administration purposes.  IP addresses are also logged to track a user’s session. This gives us an idea of which parts of our Site and Services that users are visiting and using, and where the traffic to the Site is coming from. We do not share the log files externally.

Cookies.  Cookies are used to keep track of certain information while you are visiting our Site and Services.  Specifically, cookies are very small files placed on your computer that allow us to count the number of visitors to our Site or applications and to distinguish repeat visitors from new visitors.  We also use cookies to save your preferences and track user trends. We rely on cookies for the proper operation of our Site and Services; therefore if your browser is set to reject all cookies, the Site or application will not function properly.  If you accept all cookies, our Site will run optimally. If you reject all cookies, you take the risk of decreased functionality. We take reasonable steps to respond and honor “do not track” settings and notifications from you at the browser level. 

Profile Information About You.  When you register or subscribe to any of our services, we collect a wide variety of information about you, such as your name, what type of legal services you are looking for or offering, when and where those services are to be performed, etc.  For our matching service, for example, general users provide us with answers to our questionnaires, and we use your answers to match you with attorneys you wish to solicit for legal services. General users specifically provide us with answers to our questionnaires concerning their legal questions or issues and location, with the understanding that the information provided will be shared with their potential attorneys.  Attorney users provide us with answers to our questionnaires concerning themselves, their location, their state bar membership and their areas of legal practice, and other personal and professional information about themselves, including but not limited to a photograph, which we then post to an attorney profile. We use your answers to ensure that general users are matched with attorneys who are available to perform the requested legal services in the appropriate geographic area.  Individual responses to the questionnaires will be held strictly confidential and only shared with your matches. Personal information such as your first and last name, email address, location, a photograph if shared, etc., will be used to build your profile. Client profiles and responses to questionnaires are shared with a select number of potential attorney matches; attorney profile pictures are also shared with potential client matches; full attorney profiles are shared after the attorney confirms a client match.  

Purchase Information.  To process purchases, we require your name, address, phone number, email address, banking information, and debit card or credit card information.  Such information is used primarily to process your membership and/or to hold and release funds to pay for legal services, if appropriate, through CB Direct Pay.  Debit card and credit card transactions are processed through industry standard Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and/or strong encryption (3DES) mechanisms by a third party, Stripe, Inc., which only uses your information solely for that purpose.  You may refer to Stripe’s Checkout User Terms of Service Agreement and Stripe's Privacy Policy.

Emails, Texts, and Telephone Calls with Us.  We require an email address and telephone number from you when you register for our services.  We use your email for both transactional purposes (e.g., order confirmation, refund and renewal processing, notifying you of matches for our matching service) and promotional purposes (e.g., sending you newsletters, new product offerings, special discounts, event notifications, special offers).  Email messages we send you may contain code that enables our database to track your usage of the emails, including whether the email was opened and what links (if any) were clicked. If you would rather not receive promotional emails from us, please see the section below labeled “Preferences/Opting-Out of Promotional Emails”.  We reserve the right to send you certain communications relating to Court Buddy’s services, such as administrative messages, without offering you the opportunity to opt out of receiving them for as long as you are a Court Buddy member. We may also contact you by telephone or text message (including to any wireless number you may provide to us) solely in connection with Court Buddy’s services, for transactional purposes only (and never for promotional purposes).  If you would rather not receive telephone calls or text messages from us, you may change or delete your number from your account preferences page(s), or ask to be removed from our contact list if you receive a call or text message from us. We fully comply with the requirements of the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act.

Attorney-Client Communications.  We also have and retain access to messages exchanged between attorneys and clients and potential clients using Court Buddy’s attorney-client messaging boards, and other Court Buddy messaging features and products; those communications are maintained as private and confidential between the attorneys and clients and are protected by Court Buddy’s data security measures.  

Demographic Data.  Demographic data is also collected through our Site and Services, including information that can be used to describe and characterize our attorney user and general user populations (such as user location and range of fees willing to be paid or accepted).  We use this data to tailor our users’ experience at our Site, to display or otherwise provide content to our users that we think they might be interested in, and to display the content according to their preferences.

Online Survey Data.  We may periodically conduct voluntary surveys of our members or other users of our Site and Services.  We encourage participation in such surveys because they provide us with important information regarding how we can improve our Site and Services.  If you participate in surveys that we offer, any additional rules regarding the conduct of such surveys will be disclosed to you prior to your participation.  All responses to our surveys are anonymous.

Information Regarding Your Friends.  We encourage you to refer a friend, family member, or loved one to our matching service by sending us that person’s name and email address.  We will keep this information in our database, and send that person a one-time email containing your name and inviting them to visit our Site.  This email will also include instructions on how to remove their information from our database if they elect to do so. You agree that you will not abuse this feature by entering names and addresses of those who would not be interested in Court Buddy’s Site or Services.  For some of our services, you may also give gift memberships to your friends, family members, or loved ones, in which case we will use that person’s email address that you provide in order to deliver the gift.

Public Forums.  Any information that is disclosed on the public pages of the Site, for example, in our blogs and/or advice forums, including but not limited to your posts and comments on posts, may become public information and you should exercise caution when deciding to post.  In some cases, we may not be able to remove your information once posted, though we will attempt to do so upon request.

Use for Research.  In addition to the uses outlined above, we use information about you and your experiences with the Site and Services, as well as your use of and visits to the Site and Services and their features, to continue our research into how to create successful matches and improve our Site and Services and features.

Mobile Devices.  If you use a mobile device to access our Site or download any of our applications related to our Site and Services, we will collect and store information regarding your device (including your mobile device ID, model and manufacturer), operating system and version information, and your IP address.

Mobile Analytics.  We use mobile analytics software to allow us to better understand the functionality of our mobile software and application on your smartphone or tablet (e.g., iPad, Samsung Tablet).  This software records information such as how often you use the application, the events that occur within the application, aggregated usage, performance data, and where the application was downloaded from.  We do not link the mobile analytics software to your name or profile information.

Geo-Locational Information.  We do not access or track any location-based information from your mobile device at any time while you utilize your mobile device to access, use or download our Site and Services.

Push Notifications.  We send you push notifications if you choose to receive them to notify you of matches for our matching service, let you know when someone has sent you a message, or for other Site and Service-related matters.  This is voluntary, offered for your convenience to facilitate and improve your use of the Site and Services. If you wish to opt-out from receiving these types of communications you may turn them off at the device level.

Disclosure to Your Matches. We will disclose a client’s profile information and responses to our questionnaires to a select number of potential attorney matches.  Once the match is made and confirmed by the potential attorney, we disclose the attorney’s profile information to the client.

Disclosure Required By Law.  We will disclose information you provide if required to do so by law, or if we, in our sole discretion, believe that disclosure is reasonably necessary to: (1) comply with the law, requests or orders from law enforcement, or any legal process (whether or not such disclosure is required by applicable law); (2) protect or defend Court Buddy’s rights or property in court or arbitration; or (3) protect someone’s health or safety, such as when harm or violence against any person (including you) is threatened.

Disclosure to Service Providers By Us.  We may share your personal information with service providers that may be associated with us as necessary to perform functions at our request to better serve you.  For example, outsourced customer support agents, call centers, or technology assistants may need access to your information to perform services for you. Your information will be treated as confidential by such service providers and not used for any purpose other than what we authorize.  

Disclosure to Third Party Advertisers on Behalf of Court Buddy.  We periodically use third-party advertisers to serve ads, promotions, or make offers on behalf of Court Buddy, based on your visits to our Site, use of our Services and web browsing activity.  These advertisers may employ cookies to measure advertising effectiveness. Some of these third-party advertisers may be members of the Network Advertising Initiative, which offers you the option to opt-out of targeted advertising by clearing your cookies from your browser.  We do not share nor sell your personal information to third party advertisers to offer goods and services on behalf of any entity other than Court Buddy based on your visits to the Site, use of our Services or web browsing activity.     

Search Engine Crawlers.  Any information that you post on the public pages of our Site, such as our blogs or advice forums, may be available to search engine crawlers and therefore may appear in internet search results, but your profile information is kept private and will be included in such search results.

Information Transferred As a Result of Sale of Our Business.  As we develop our business, we may buy, sell or transfer assets and, depending on the transaction, your personal information may be one of the transferred assets.  For clarity, this means that in the event that we are acquired by another company, merge with another company, or have a similar corporate transaction, your profile, accounts and personal information may be part of the assets transferred to the acquiring party.  If this occurs, you will be notified if there are any material changes to the way your personal information is collected or used, or to this Privacy Policy.

You may be able to access your account or content of your account from third party sites, such as social networking sites, by way of various applications (e.g., linkedin, facebook, twitter, google+, youtube, pinterest, instagram, tumblr, etc.).  The privacy policies and practices of such sites in connection with information you disclose on such sites may differ from the practices of Court Buddy as set forth in this Privacy Policy, and you should review their policies and practices to ensure that the privacy of the information you submit on their sites does not conflict with, and is consistent with, how you wish your information to be treated.  Such sites may also place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or solicit personal information from you. We are not responsible for the privacy policies or practices or the content of any other websites that may provide access to, or be linked to or from, our Site or Services, including that of any social networking sites and third party advertisers whose offerings require you to navigate away from our site.

All privileged information provided to Court Buddy or shared on Court Buddy's attorney-client messaging board remains private and confidential between attorneys and clients unless they elect to share it with others outside of Court Buddy. Specifically, while we have and retain access to messages exchanged between attorneys and clients and potential clients using the Court Buddy messaging system, those communications are maintained as confidential and protected by Court Buddy’s data security measures.

We take the security of your personal information seriously.  We have extensive security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, unauthorized access to, and/or alteration of the personal information you share with us.  Moreover, we continually update and improve our security measures. Currently, all of the personal information you share with us is stored on our internal, password-protected, secure server.  We partner with Stripe, Inc., which uses Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and/or strong encryption (3DES) technology during all debit card and credit card transactions. Finally, we will exercise reasonable care in providing secure transmission of information between your computer and our servers, but given that no information transmitted over the Internet can ever be guaranteed 100% secure, we cannot absolutely warrant the security of any information transmitted to us over the Internet.  In the event that we learn that your unencrypted personal information was acquired, or is reasonably believed to have been acquired, by an unauthorized person, we will notify you in compliance with law.

support@courtbuddy.com.  Please include the e-mail address associated with your Court Buddy account in this notice.

You may also send mail to the following postal address letting us know which promotional emails or newsletters you wish to opt-out of:

The Court Buddy Company, Inc.

c/o: Customer Support

601 California Street, Suite 1210

San Francisco, CA 94108

Because many users tend to use our Site and Services on an ongoing basis and/or at different points of their lives, we retain your personal information for continued service and convenience purposes until you advise us not to do so

However, you have the right to ask Court Buddy for a reasonable description of what personal information we have about you, to access your account, or to have us delete your personal information from our database.  Specifically, you may use the following options to ask Court Buddy to identify for you the personal information it has collected about you and to provide you with a copy of it within a reasonable time after receiving your request.  You may also use the following options for accessing your account and for deleting your personal information from our database in keeping with this Privacy Policy.  

Court Buddy provides users the following options for accessing your personal information previously collected and used by Court Buddy, accessing your account, or for processing a request to delete your personal information from our database:

- Send us an e-mail at customersupport@courtbuddy.com and our Customer Support agents will be happy to assist you;

- For any services where you have an account, you may access your account on our Site and change your debit card or credit card (if applicable), e-mail address, password and other information from the account settings or preferences page; or

- You can send mail to the postal address listed in the next Section, providing us with your account information and letting us know which personal information you (1) wish to have us identify for you and/or provide you with a copy of, or (2) have deleted from our database.

If we receive a request from you for a description of your personal information or to provide you with a copy of it or delete it, we will (1) verify your request; (2) take reasonably timely steps to provide you with a description or copy of the requested information (if you have requested such a copy), to otherwise provide you with access to your account and personal information (if that is your request), or to delete your personal information from our database (if that is your request); and (3) inform any direct service providers with whom we do business to also delete the requested information.

In the event that you elect to exercise your rights under this Privacy Policy or applicable privacy laws, you will in no way be discriminated against for doing so by Court Buddy; specifically, you will still be entitled to equal Services and pricing terms from Court Buddy as our other users.

If you have any questions about your dealings with Court Buddy, the personal information we collect, or this Privacy Policy, you can contact us by sending us an email by utilizing the “Contact Us” option within the drop-down menu at www.courtbuddy.com, sending us an email at support@courtbuddy.com, contacting us by telephone at 866-653-3017, or you may send mail to the following postal address alerting us to your question, comment or concern:

The Court Buddy Company, Inc.

c/o: Customer Support

601 California Street, Suite 1210

San Francisco, CA 94108 USA

If we decide to change our Privacy Policy, we will post those changes to this page and any other places on the Site we deem appropriate, so that you will continue to be aware of what personal information we collect, how we use it, under what circumstances we share or disclose it, and what reasonable steps we take to keep it secure.  We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you here, elsewhere on the Site, or by other means, such as e-mail, at our discretion.

Your continued use of our Site and Services following posting of an updated Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of the changes.  However, as discussed above, you may always contact Court Buddy to request a copy of your personal information, to access your account, to have your personal information deleted from our database, or if you have any further questions about our policies and practices.