Privacy Policy

Last Updated: January 2, 2024

Your privacy is important to us. To better protect your privacy, we provide this Privacy Policy to explain our online information practices and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and processed.

This Privacy Policy applies to all information collected from or submitted to BL Rankings, LLC (“Best Lawyers,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), including on the websites bestlawyers.com and bestlawfirms.com (our “Websites”).

Best Lawyers, with registered office at 801 Broad Street, Suite 950, Augusta, GA 30901, USA is the Controller for the processing of your personal data for the purposes described below.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our Websites. By accessing or using our Websites, you agree to this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy may change from time to time. Your continued use of our Websites after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the policy periodically for updates.

Children Under the Age of 13

Our Websites are not intended for children under 13 years of age. No one under age 13 may provide any personal information to or on the Websites. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are under 13, do not use or provide any information on this Website. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at info@bestlawyers.com.

1. What personal data is collected about you?

BL Rankings, LLC offers a number of services, including our search features, that do not require you to register for an account or provide any personal information to us. In order to provide our full range of services, we may collect the following types of information:

1.1 Information you provide us

When you subscribe to bestlawyers.com or other Best Lawyers services or promotions that require registration, Best Lawyers will collect personal data about you. The main categories of data collected are: the name and location of your firm/company and company information, your name, email addresses and phone number.

When you send Best Lawyers an email or other communications, the content of your message and your answer will be collected.

For certain goods or services, you might also communicate to us payment data which will be encrypted and securely stored on our servers.

You also may provide information to be posted, published or displayed on public areas of the Websites, or transmitted to other users of the Websites or third parties (collectively, “User Content”). Your User Content is posted on the Websites and transmitted to others at your own risk. We cannot control the actions of other users of the Websites with whom you may choose to share your User Content. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that your User Content will not be viewed by unauthorized persons.

Professional References Data

For certain business processes we ask our users to provide client and professional reference contact information for Best Lawyers to contact individuals regarding their experiences with specific law firms. This contact information includes: first name, last name and email address.

1.2 Log Information

When you use Best Lawyers services, our servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit our website. The main categories of data collected are: web request, date and time of the request, IP address, browser type and browser language.

Best Lawyers also uses cookies and other tracking technologies. You can find out more about this in our Cookie Policy.

Best Lawyers implements links on its website in a format that allows it to keep track on whether these links have been followed.

1.3 Other information collected about you

Best Lawyers solicits nominations, as well as votes and commentary regarding potential and existing candidates for inclusion in its database of preeminent lawyers, law firms, expert referrals and other service providers.

Nominations on the website: your personal data will be communicated to Best Lawyers by third parties (clients, lawyers, marketing teams, other references). The main categories of data collected about you are: your name, gender, firm suffix, specialty, name of your firm, address, country, city, state (if based in the U.S.), zip, fax number and email address. The person who nominates you can also choose to communicate your firm’s phone number, your phone number and a link to the firm’s website.

If you are nominating a lawyer or have received a survey: Best Lawyers also collects or may receive personal information about you. The main categories of data collected are: your name, your company’s name, full address, position/title, email address. You can also choose to provide us with a link to your company/firm’s website, your phone number and the way you got to know the nominee ("I’m a lawyer"/ "I work in a law firm" / "I’m an outside publicist consultant" / "I’m a client" / "Other" including a description if you choose "Other").

Best Lawyers' affiliated websites: Best Lawyers offers services in connection with other web sites. Personal information that you provide to these websites can be sent to Best Lawyers for the purposes described below. If you want more information on the personal data you might communicate on these websites, please consult their Privacy Policies.

2. What are the purposes for processing and what are the legal bases?

Best Lawyers processes personal information only for the purposes for which it was collected. We periodically review our data collection, storage and processing practices to ensure that we only collect, store and process the personal information needed to provide or improve our services.

Your personal data are processed for the following purposes and in accordance with the legal bases set out below:

Category of Personal InformationHow We Use This InformationLegal Bases for Processing
Contact information and basic personal details (e.g. your name, email address, mailing address).To communicate with you, such as through statements, updates, newsletters or alerts.Our legitimate interest in marketing our products and services and communicating with you effectively.
To process your orders and to deliver products purchased by you.Our legitimate interest in performing a contract with you and in taking steps necessary to the formation of a contract for the purchase of products or services.
To respond to an inquiry or process a request from you.Our legitimate interest in communicating with you effectively for the purpose of resolving your issue. Our legitimate interest in improving our website, products and services.
To collect information on the legal industry provided by you.Our legitimate interest in gathering information on the legal industry to maintain our research process.
Information about how you access and use our website, such as the pages you visit, the time you spend on a page, whether you click on any links, what browser you use or what web pages you visit before and/or after your visit to our website.To manage and improve our website.Our legitimate interest to provide a website.
To determine products and services that may be of interest to you for marketing purposes, and to develop new products and services.Our legitimate interest in marketing our products and services.
Performing statistics on the use of the website (please see our cookie policy) to improve the quality of our website.Your consent.
Log files and information about your device.Improving the performance of our website and ensuring the technical functioning of our network and services.Our legitimate interests in providing you with a better experience in using our website and in improving the quality of our services.
Audit, research and analysis in order to maintain, protect and improve our services.Best Lawyers’ legitimate interest to provide you with a better experience and improve the quality of its services.

3. Options for Personal Information

When you sign up for a particular service that requires registration, we ask you to provide personal information. If we use this information in a manner different from the purpose for which it was collected, then we will ask for your consent prior to such use.

If we propose to use personal information for any purposes other than those described in this Policy and/or in the specific service notices, we will offer you an effective way to opt out of the use of personal information for those other purposes. We will not collect or use sensitive information for purposes other than those described in this Policy and/or in the specific service notices, unless we have obtained your prior consent.

You can decline to submit personal information to any of our services, in which case Best Lawyers may not be able to provide those services to you. Lawyers can also opt-out of Best Lawyers. To be removed from our database, contact us at info@bestlawyers.com.

4. Who are the recipients of your data?

Your data will be used by authorized employees of Best Lawyers when necessary for carrying out the above listed purposes.

Best Lawyers also communicates your data to its authorized Processors in the following categories:

  • Media Partners: Best Lawyers may provide your information for the purpose of publicizing the Best Lawyers rankings to different regional and global media partners.
  • Publishing Partners: Best Lawyers may provide your information for the purpose of publishing our Best Lawyers rankings in a Best Lawyers magazine or book.

Best Lawyers may disclose information it collects about you if required by applicable law or to comply with a court order or an order from a public authority, or to enforce or apply our Terms & Conditions and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes. For EU residents, any disclosure will be done in accordance with applicable data protection laws, and with the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) for EU residents to ensure that Best Lawyers provides an adequate level of protection for your personal data. Best Lawyers partners with various EU media outlets (including Handelsblatt and Les Echos) to promote Best Lawyers awards to a targeted audience. For more information on our media partners, please contact blmarketing@bestlawyers.com.

5. Security

Best Lawyers has implemented appropriate technical and organizational measures designed to ensure an appropriate level of security regarding the risk incurred and protect your personal data against accidental loss and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration or destruction. The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of our Websites, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to our Websites. Any transmission of personal information is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Websites.

6. What are your rights? How can you exercise them?

Best Lawyers makes every commercially reasonable effort to ensure changes to Lawyers', Experts' and Service Providers' Bio Pages are updated in a timely manner, provided that the request for changes is made in writing and signed by Lawyer, Expert, or Service Provider or his or her firm contact.

Best Lawyers makes good faith efforts to provide you with access to your personal information and either to correct this data if it is inaccurate or to delete such data at your request if it is not otherwise required to be retained by law or for legitimate business purposes.

We ask individual users to identify themselves and the information requested to be accessed, corrected, or removed before processing such requests, and we may decline to process requests that are unreasonably repetitive or systematic, require disproportionate technical effort, jeopardize the privacy of others, or would be extremely impractical (for instance, requests concerning information residing on backup tapes) or for which access is not otherwise required.

In any case where we provide information access and correction, we perform this service free of charge, except if doing so would require a disproportionate effort. Some of our services have different procedures to access, correct or delete users' personal information. We provide the details for these procedures in the specific Privacy Policy or FAQs for these services.

For EU residents: please refer to Article 7 below for information on your rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) ("GDPR"). For California residents: please refer to Article 9 below for information on your rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act.

7. For European Union residents only

In addition to the above, please find below information which applies to European Union residents only under applicable Data Protection Law, notably the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR").

7.1 What are your rights?

Under applicable European Data Protection Law, notably the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR"), you have a number of rights with regard to your personal data. Those rights are as follows:

  • Right to Access — You can ask to see the personal information Best Lawyers holds about you. In connection with a request, we may request specific information about you to enable us to confirm your identity and right access, as well as search for and provide you with the personal information Best Lawyers holds about you. In the event we cannot provide you with access to your personal information (for instance, personal information may have been destroyed, erased or made anonymous), we will inform you of the reasons why.
  • Correction or Deletion of Personal Information — Best Lawyers works to ensure that personal information in its possession is accurate, current and complete. If you think that the personal information Best Lawyers holds on you is incorrect, inaccurate, incomplete or outdated, you may request the revision or correction of that information. If it is determined that personal information is inaccurate, incomplete or outdated, we will revise it.
  • Withdrawal of Consent — If you have provided consent for the processing of your data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time which will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before your consent was withdrawn.
  • Objection to Processing — You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data including profiling, on grounds relating to your particular situation as provided by Data Protection law. When profiling is related to direct marketing you always have a right to object to the profiling.
  • Limitation to Processing — You have the right to obtain from us restriction of processing in certain instances as provided by data protection law.
  • Right to Data Portability — You have the right to receive the personal data, which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format when the processing is based on your consent or on a contract. You also have the right to ask us to transmit it to another data controller of your choice.
  • Complaints — You have the right to lodge a complaint to the Data Protection Authority in the country where you live or work, if you believe that Best Lawyers has not complied with the requirements of the GDPR with regard to your personal data.

If you wish to exercise one of your rights, please send a request in this regard via email to info@bestlawyers.com.

7.2 How long will your personal data be retained?

We will retain your personal information in a form that identifies you only for as long as doing so serves the purposes for which the information was initially collected as stated in this privacy policy, or as subsequently authorized. We may continue processing your personal information for longer periods, but only for the time and to the extent such processing reasonably serves the purposes of archiving in the public interest, journalism, literature and art, scientific or historical research and statistical analysis, and subject to the protection of this Privacy Policy. When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymize it, or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.

8. Enforcement

Best Lawyers periodically reviews its compliance with this Policy. Please feel free to direct any questions or concerns regarding this Policy or Best Lawyers' treatment of personal information by contacting us through this website or by writing to us at Privacy Matters, c/o BL Rankings, LLC, 801 Broad Street, Suite 950, Augusta, GA 30901, USA.

When we receive formal written complaints at this address, it is Best Lawyers' policy to contact the complaining user regarding his or her concerns.

We will cooperate with the appropriate regulatory authorities, including local data protection authorities, to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of personal data that cannot be resolved between Best Lawyers and an individual.

9. Your California Privacy Rights

For California residents, California law may provide you with additional rights regarding our use of your personal information. To learn more about your California privacy rights, visit https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa.

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act (as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act) (CCPA), California residents have certain rights with respect to their personal information. The below is a summary of rights granted under the CCPA to persons who are California residents and information regarding how such persons can exercise their rights under the CCPA. Information required to be disclosed to California residents under the CCPA not set forth below can be found elsewhere in this Privacy Policy.

Deletion Rights: You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information retained by us, subject to certain statutory exceptions, including, but not limited to, our compliance with U.S., state, local and non-U.S. laws, rules and regulations. If we cannot comply with a specific request, we will notify you in writing and provide an explanation unless prohibited by law or court order.

Disclosure and Access Rights: You have the right to request that we provide you certain information regarding our collection and use of personal information specific to you over the last twelve (12) months. This information includes:

  • the categories of personal information we collected about you;
  • the categories of sources from which the personal information was collected;
  • our business or commercial purpose for collecting such personal information;
  • the categories of third parties with whom we share the personal information;
  • the specific pieces of personal information we collected about you; and
  • whether we disclosed your personal information to a third party, and, if yes, the categories of personal information that each recipient obtained.

No Discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights under the CCPA, including by denying service, suggesting that you will be charged or subject to, or charging, different rates for services or suggesting that you will receive, or providing, a different level or quality of service to you.

How to Exercise Your Rights: To exercise any of your rights under the CCPA or to access this notice in an alternative format, please submit a request on your behalf using any of the methods set forth in Section 14 below.

10. Do Not Sell My Information

You have the right to opt out of the sale of your personal information. This means your personal information will not be shared with any partners for publication purposes (including coverage in local magazines and newspapers). We do not sell any personal information to interest-based advertising organizations. Contact us at info@bestlawyers.com for more information.

11. "Do Not Track" Signals

Do Not Track is a privacy preference that users can set in their web browsers. When a user turns on the Do Not Track signal, the browser sends a message to websites requesting them not to track the user. For information about Do Not Track, visit https://allaboutdnt.com. At this time, we do not respond to Do Not Track browser settings or signals.

12. Accessibility Statement

We care about availability and accessibility for all users to our site. In our commitment to offering any user access to all features on bestlawyers.com, our team continues development to conform to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 AA Standards. Should you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at info@bestlawyers.com.

13. Changes to this Policy

Please note that this Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We will post any Policy changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice (including, for certain services, email notification of Policy changes). Each version of this Privacy Policy will be identified at the top of the page by its effective date and we will also keep prior versions of this Policy in an archive for your review.

14. Contact

If you have any additional questions or concerns about this Policy, please feel free to contact us any time through this website or at:

info@bestlawyers.com
or

Privacy Matters, c/o BL Rankings, LLC
801 Broad Street, Suite 950
Augusta, GA 30901
USA