Who we are
We’re a law office with a distinctly local focus. At Sheppard Law Offices, we understand the complexities of Ohio court proceedings, and we care for our community. Our three offices are located in Columbus, Mt Vernon, and Newark. We’re committed to helping local clients resolve a wide range of legal problems, with attorneys focusing in bankruptcy, taxation, probate, estate planning, and family law. Click here to learn more about our law firm.
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Contact forms
When you submit a contact form on our website, we collect certain personal information from you, such as your name, email address, and message. We collect this information in order to respond to your inquiry and provide you with the information or assistance you have requested.
We may also use your contact information to send you updates or news about our company or services, with your consent. Your personal information will not be shared with third parties without your consent, except as required by law.
We take the privacy of our users seriously and strive to protect their personal information. We have implemented appropriate measures to secure your personal data and keep it confidential. If you have any questions or concerns about our privacy policy, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Analytics
Our website uses analytics services, such as Google Analytics, to collect and analyze information about the use of our site. This information includes data such as the number of visitors to the site, the pages they visit, and the duration of their visit.
We use this information to understand how our site is being used and to make improvements to the user experience. The data collected by analytics services is anonymous and does not personally identify individual users.
We may also collect information about your device and browser, such as IP address, device type, and browser version, in order to improve our site’s compatibility and performance.
We take the privacy of our users seriously and strive to protect their personal information. We have implemented appropriate measures to secure your personal data and keep it confidential. If you have any questions or concerns about our privacy policy, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Who we share your data with
We may share your personal information with third parties for specific purposes, such as providing you with a requested service or completing a transaction. These third parties are required to keep your personal information confidential and are prohibited from using it for any other purpose.
We may also share your personal information with third parties in the following cases:
- With your explicit consent
- When required by law or a legal process
- When necessary to protect our rights or property
- With service providers and partners who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you.
- We may also share anonymous or aggregate data with third parties for research, marketing, or other purposes. This data does not personally identify individual users.
We take the privacy of our users seriously and strive to protect their personal information. We have implemented appropriate measures to secure your personal data and keep it confidential. If you have any questions or concerns about our privacy policy, please do not hesitate to contact us.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Additional information
How we protect your data
We take the protection of your personal information seriously and have implemented appropriate security measures to protect your data from unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction.
The following measures are in place to protect your personal information:
- Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption for all data transmission
- Firewall protection for our servers
- Regular security audits and vulnerability assessments
- Limited access to personal data to authorized personnel only
- Regularly updated security protocols and best practices
- We also require our third-party service providers and partners to implement appropriate security measures to protect your personal information.
Please note that no method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
If you have any questions or concerns about the security of your personal information, please do not hesitate to contact us.”
What data breach procedures we have in place
We take data security seriously and have implemented procedures to prevent and respond to data breaches. In the event of a data breach, we will take immediate action to contain and investigate the incident. We will also notify affected individuals and any relevant authorities as required by law.
Our data breach response plan includes the following steps:
- Containment: We will take immediate action to stop the breach and prevent further unauthorized access to personal data.
- Assessment: We will conduct a thorough investigation to determine the scope and cause of the breach, and identify any affected individuals.
- Notification: We will notify affected individuals and any relevant authorities as required by law.
- Remediation: We will take action to address the cause of the breach and implement measures to prevent a similar incident from happening in the future.
- Monitoring: We will monitor the situation and take additional action as necessary.
We will also review and update our data security procedures and protocols to ensure that we maintain the highest level of protection for your personal information.
If you have any questions or concerns about our data breach response plan, please do not hesitate to contact us.
