Attorneys.org Terms of Use
Effective as of August 1, 2014
These terms of use (“Terms of Use”) describe the terms under which Attorneys.org (“ATTYS,” “we,” or “us”) provides the www.attorneys.org website (the “ATTYS Service” or the “Service”).
-
1. INTRODUCTION
By using the Service, you accept the ATTYS Terms of Use and the following terms and conditions and policies, including any future amendments (collectively, the “Agreement”):
Privacy Policy
Changes and Modifications. ATTYS reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions of this Agreement, at any time. Such changes will become effective thirty (30) days after they have been posted to this site or ATTYS has otherwise notified you of the change. Though ATTYS may attempt to notify you when major changes are made to this Agreement, you should periodically review the most recent version which is always available from a link on our homepage. Your continued use of the Service following the posting of changes will mean that you accept and agree to the changes. As long as you comply with this Agreement, ATTYS grants you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-assignable, non-sublicensable right to access and use the Service as it is intended to be used and in accordance with this Agreement and applicable law. We grant you no other rights, implied or otherwise.
Links To Other Sites. The Service may contain links to other independent third-party websites (“Linked Sites”). These Linked Sites are provided solely as a convenience to our visitors. Such Linked Sites are not under ATTYS’s control, and ATTYS is not responsible for and does not necessarily endorse the content or practices of such Linked Sites, including any information or materials contained on such Linked Sites. You will need to make your own independent judgment regarding your interaction with these Linked Sites.
-
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE SERVICE
General Description. ATTYS provides resources and services to help customers learn about legal matters, legal services, and compare the services of attorneys and law firms. ATTYS is not itself a licensed attorney and does not provide legal services.
What the Service is Not. Neither ATTYS nor the Service provided at www.attorneys.org is itself an attorney. The ATTYS Service provides information, ratings, and reviews of firms operating in that field, and allows our users to rate, review, and comment on those firms. ATTYS is an independent information provider, and is not affiliated with – nor sponsored nor endorsed by – any firm described at the www.attorneys.org website. If you chose to obtain information from a site linked to the Service, we encourage you to review the terms and conditions associated with that service before making your decision (see Links To Other Sites above).
Adults Only. The ATTYS Service is intended for adults only. You must be 18 years of age or older or, if the age of majority in your state or province is greater than 18 years, you must have attained the age of majority in your state or province, to use this Service. In accordance with Federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), ATTYS will never knowingly solicit nor will it accept personally identifiable information from users known to be under thirteen (13) years of age. Please see our privacy policy for additional information or for how to notify us of any concerns in this regard.
-
3. CONDITIONS OF USE AND USER CONDUCT
No Legal Advice. The ATTYS service is not and shall not be used as legal advice. You use the content, information and services on this website at your own risk. You acknowledge that ATTYS, its agents, employees, affiliates or customers, are not providing legal advice or representation through this website, and that nothing on this website is intended as a substitute for legal advice from an attorney. In no circumstance shall ATTYS have any liability to you for any reliance on information contained on or obtained through this website.
No Endorsement of attorneys. ATTYS is not an attorney referral service. Attorney listings are advertisements. ATTYS does not endorse any particular attorney, law firm, or provider of legal services; nor does ATTYS make any representation about the quality of legal services or the qualifications of any attorney, law firm or legal provider. Any and all recommendations are by third parties and could be inaccurate or incomplete and are difficult or impossible to verify. Therefore, ATTYS expressly disclaims any representation or warranty that such recommendations or other User Content are correct or reliable. In no circumstance shall ATTYS have any liability to you for any reliance on information contained on or obtained through this website.
No Attorney Client Relationship. You acknowledge that no attorney client relationship is, or will be, formed through the use of this website, and that you have no expectation of privacy or confidentiality of communications occurring through this website. The hiring of an attorney is an important decision and should not be predicated solely on comments, recommendations, advertisements, User Content or any other materials contained on this website or any other website.
Attorney Conduct. If you are an attorney participating in any aspect of this website, you acknowledge that the Rules of Professional Conduct (collectively, “Rules”) of the jurisdictions in which you are licensed apply to all aspects of your participation and that you will abide by such Rules. ATTYS disclaims all responsibility for your compliance with these Rules. You warrant that User Content will be used to provide general information only and not for the practice of law.
Furthermore, as a condition of use, you agree to the following:
- You acknowledge that the Service is for personal use only – you agree that you will not use the Service for any commercial purposes.
- You must not use the Service to harass, threaten, impersonate, or intimidate any person or entity.
- You must not upload, post, email, transmit, or otherwise make available any content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically, or otherwise objectionable.
- You must not upload, post, email, transmit, or otherwise make available any content that is in violation of copyright, trademark or other law protecting intellectual property in any jurisdiction, or that violates an individual’s publicity or privacy rights.
- You must not upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, “junk mail,” “spam,” “chain letters,” “pyramid schemes,” “affiliate links,” or any other form of solicitation.
- You must not transmit any worms or viruses or any code of a destructive nature.
- You must not violate any local laws in your jurisdiction (including but not limited to intellectual property laws).
- You must not use the Service for any illegal or unauthorized purpose. If you are an international user, you agree to comply with all local laws regarding online conduct and acceptable content.
-
4. CONTENT SHARING
The Service allows you to upload, transmit, publish, and disseminate ratings and reviews of attorneys and law firms (“User Content”). When you use copyrightable User Content on or through the Service, you retain ownership of any copyright you claim to your User Content. You also represent and warrant that, with respect to all User Content that you upload, transmit, publish and disseminate through the Service, (a) you have all the rights and licenses necessary to use, reproduce, publish, display publicly, perform publicly (including by means of digital audio transmission), distribute, or otherwise exploit such User Content in connection with the Service (and to grant to ATTYS the licenses set forth in this Agreement); (b) the User Content will not infringe or otherwise violate the copyright, trademark or other intellectual property rights of any third party; and (c) the User Content is truthful, to the best of your knowledge.
By submitting User Content as set forth above, you hereby do and shall grant to ATTYS (and its successors, assigns, third party service providers) a worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, fully paid, sublicensable, and transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform (including by means of digital audio transmission), and otherwise exploit the content on and in connection with the manufacture, sale, promotion, marketing and distribution of products offered on, or in association with, the Service or with any of the distributors of products sold in association with the Service, and in any medium and by any means currently existing or yet to be devised. You also hereby do and shall grant to each user of the Service a non-exclusive license to access and view your content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, modify or create derivative works based thereon, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, and publicly perform by means of a digital audio transmission such content as permitted through the functionality of the Service.
By using the Service, you acknowledge and agree that ATTYS does not guarantee access to and hosting of your User Content that is shared via the Service. For example, if User Content violates these Terms of Use, access to it may be disabled. Also, if a particular piece of content creates too large a demand on the Service, it may result in access to the content being temporarily or permanently disabled.
-
5. COPYRIGHT POLICY REGARDING THIRD PARTIES
If you believe that ATTYS, or any user of the Service, has violated a copyright you claim in your work, please contact us pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) at [email protected] and review our copyright policy for more details on how to properly notify us of a DMCA issue.
-
6. ATTYS’S INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
All text, graphics, user interfaces, visual interfaces, photographs, trademarks, logos, sounds, music, artwork, content, and computer code (collectively, “ATTYS Content”), including but not limited to the design, structure, selection, coordination, expression, “look and feel,” and arrangement of such ATTYS Content, contained on the Service is owned, controlled, or licensed by or to ATTYS, and is protected by trade dress, copyright, patent, and trademark laws, and various other intellectual property rights.
Except as expressly provided in this Agreement or otherwise permitted by law, no ATTYS Content may be used, copied, reproduced, modified, republished, uploaded, posted, publicly displayed, publicly performed, publicly performed by means of a digital audio transmission, encoded, translated, transmitted, or distributed in any way to any other computer, server, website, or any other medium for publication or distribution or for any commercial enterprise or purpose, without ATTYS’s express prior written consent.
-
7. VIOLATION OF THIS AGREEMENT – TERMINATION
You agree that ATTYS may, at its sole discretion and without prior notice, terminate your access to the Service and/or block your future access to the Service if we determine that you have violated this Agreement or other agreements or guidelines which may be associated with your use of the Service. Please note that it is ATTYS’s policy to terminate the account of users who violate the copyrights of third parties.
If ATTYS does take any legal action against you as a result of your violation of this Agreement, ATTYS will be entitled to recover from you, and you agree to pay, all reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs of such action, in addition to any other relief granted to ATTYS. You agree that ATTYS will not be liable to you or to any third party for termination of your access to the Service as a result of any violation of this Agreement.
-
8. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES
YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS. ATTYS AND ITS SUBSIDIARIES, DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, STOCKHOLDERS AND LICENSORS (THE “ATTYS AFFILIATES”) EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ALL REPRESENTATIONS, WARRANTIES, AND CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, MERCHANTABLE QUALITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, TITLE, OR ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION ARISING BY USAGE OF TRADE, COURSE OF DEALING, OR COURSE OF PERFORMANCE. ATTYS AND THE ATTYS AFFILIATES MAKE NO WARRANTY THAT (a) THE SERVICE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS; (b) THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE; (c) USER CONTENT WILL BE HOSTED AND/OR TRANSMITTED WITHOUT INTERRUPTION OR CESSATION; AND (d) ANY DEFECTS IN THE OPERATION OR FUNCTIONALITY OF THE SERVICE OR RELATED SOFTWARE WILL BE CORRECTED.
ANY MATERIAL, INFORMATION OR DATA DOWNLOADED OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED THROUGH THE USE OF THE SERVICE IS ACCESSED AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK, AND YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR LOSS OF DATA THAT RESULT FROM THE DOWNLOAD OF SUCH MATERIAL. NO ADVICE, REPRESENTATION OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED BY YOU FROM ATTYS OR THROUGH THE WEBSITES SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY NOT EXPRESSLY STATED IN THE AGREEMENT.
-
9. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT ATTYS AND THE ATTYS AFFILIATES WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES THAT MAY BE INCURRED BY YOU, HOWEVER CAUSED. THIS INCLUDES, BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO, ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, GOODWILL OR BUSINESS REPUTATION; ANY LOSS OF DATA; ANY COST OF PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICE; OR ANY OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES. THIS ALSO INCLUDES ANY LOSS OR DAMAGES THAT MAY BE INCURRED BY YOU AS A RESULT OF (a) ANY CHANGES THAT ATTYS MAY MAKE TO THE SERVICE; (b) ANY PERMANENT OR TEMPORARY CESSATION OF THE SERVICE; OR (c) THE DELETION OR CORRUPTION OF OR FAILURE TO STORE ANY CONTENT OR OTHER PROPERTY MAINTAINED THROUGH THE SERVICE. THE LIMITATIONS AND EXCLUSIONS OF LIABILITY ABOVE SHALL APPLY IRRESPECTIVE OF THE THEORY OF LIABILITY, INCLUDING CONTRACT (INCLUDING FUNDAMENTAL BREACH), WARRANTY, PRODUCT LIABILITY, STRICT LIABILITY, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE) OR OTHER THEORY, EVEN IF WE (OR OUR AFFILIATES) HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
YOU SPECIFICALLY ACKNOWLEDGE THAT ATTYS AND THE ATTYS AFFILIATES SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR USER CONTENT OR THE DEFAMATORY, OFFENSIVE, OR ILLEGAL CONDUCT OF ANY THIRD PARTY AND THAT THE RISK OF HARM OR DAMAGE FROM THE FOREGOING RESTS ENTIRELY WITH YOU.
-
10. EXCLUSIONS AND LIMITATIONS
SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT PERMIT THE EXCLUSION OF CERTAIN WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OR THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR CERTAIN DAMAGES. ACCORDINGLY, ONLY THE LIMITATIONS THAT ARE LAWFUL IN YOUR JURISDICTION WILL APPLY TO YOU AND, IN SUCH INSTANCES, THE ATTYS AND THE ATTYS AFFILIATES’ LIABILITY WILL BE LIMITED ONLY TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.
-
11. INDEMNIFICATION
You will indemnify and hold ATTYS and/or the ATTYS Affiliates harmless from and against any and all liabilities and costs (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) incurred by ATTYS and/or the ATTYS Affiliates in connection with any claim arising out of your breach of the Agreement. ATTYS reserves the right, at its own expense, to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you.
-
12. GENERAL TERMS
Entire Agreement. This Agreement is the whole legal agreement between you and ATTYS. It governs your use of the Service and completely replaces any prior agreements between you and ATTYS with respect to the Service.
Governing Law. You agree that all matters relating to your access to or use of the Service, including all disputes, will be governed by the laws of the United States and by the laws of the State of California without regard to its conflicts of laws provisions. You agree to the personal jurisdiction by and venue in the State and Federal courts in San Francisco County, California, and waive any objection to such jurisdiction or venue.
Dispute Resolution. No recovery may be sought or received for damages other than out-of-pocket expenses, except that the prevailing party will be entitled to costs and attorneys’ fees. In the event of any controversy or dispute between ATTYS and you arising out of or in connection with your use of the Service, the parties shall attempt, promptly and in good faith, to resolve any such dispute. If we are unable to resolve any such dispute within a reasonable time (not to exceed thirty (30) days), then either party may submit such controversy or dispute to mediation. If the dispute cannot be resolved through mediation, then the parties shall be free to pursue any right or remedy available to them under applicable law.
Statute Of Limitations. You agree that regardless of any statue or law to the contrary, any claim under this Agreement must be brought within one (1) year after the cause of action arises, or such claim or cause of action is forever barred.
Severability of Terms; Non-waiver of Terms; Assignment. If any portion of the Agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be stricken and the remainder of the Agreement enforced as written. If ATTYS does not exercise or enforce any legal right or remedy including those contained in the Agreement or arising under applicable law, this will not be taken to be a formal waiver of our rights. ATTYS may assign or delegate all rights and obligations under the Agreement, fully or partially.
Notices. ATTYS may provide you with notices, including those regarding changes to the Agreement, by email, regular mail, or postings to the Service. ATTYS’s mailing address is 848 North Rainbow Boulevard, Las Vegas, NV 89107. If you have general questions or concerns regarding these Terms of Use, please contact us in writing at [email protected] or at our mailing address.
Third Party Beneficiaries. Each ATTYS Affiliate is an intended third party beneficiary to this Agreement and shall be entitled to directly enforce and rely upon any provision of the Agreement that confers a benefit on them. Other than this, no other person shall be a third party beneficiary to the Agreement.
