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Privacy Notice

This page describes the information we may collect from you when you visit our website, how we use that information, and how we protect it.

Last Updated: September 25, 2024

Vinson & Elkins L.L.P. and its affiliated partnerships, Vinson & Elkins R.L.L.P., and Vinson & Elkins Europe R.L.L.P. (together, “V&E”, “we”, or “us”) are committed to safeguarding the privacy and the security of your personal data or personally identifiable information subject to protection under applicable data protection laws (“Personal Information”). Personal Information includes information that identifies, relates to, describes, or can be reasonably linked to, directly or indirectly, a particular individual, household, or device.

This notice (this “Privacy Notice”) describes the Personal Information we may collect from you when you visit www.velaw.com (our “Website”) or that is received from you or others when entering into an agreement that expressly incorporates this Privacy Notice. This Privacy Notice describes our collection, use, processing, deletion, security and disclosure of Personal Information, how we use and share it, and how we protect it. This Privacy Notice also describes the choices you have regarding the collection and use of your Personal Information, such as when visiting our Website. We may also receive or process additional categories of Personal Information from our clients in the course of our legal representation of those clients, and such Personal Information is subject to any separate agreements with our clients.

When you visit our Website, you consent to the collection, use, transfer and other processing of your Personal Information in accordance with this Privacy Notice and applicable laws. Please note that this Privacy Notice may be updated by us at any time. If any updates require your consent, you will have the option whether to provide such consent.

For more information about using our Website, please refer to our Terms of Use.

  1. Personal Information We Collect About You

We may collect Personal Information when you visit our Website or otherwise provide such Personal Information to us.

In the last twelve (12) months, the categories of Personal Information we have collected from individuals under this Privacy Notice include:

  1. Basic identifying information, such as your name, address, place of employment, job title, gender, and geolocation data;
  2. Contact information, such as your email address, mailing address and phone number;
  3. Job Applicant Information, such as your resume or CV, education, work experience, work authorization status, and citizenship status;
  4. Financial Information, such as bank account information, insurance information and invoicing details;
  5. Internet Information, such as information regarding your use of our Website, including your usernames and passwords for any of our Websites, or information collected via tracking technologies such as your browser type, computer operating system, or IP Address; and
  6. Other information reasonably necessary for V&E to provide you with legal services or employment opportunities.

We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 18 through this Website. If we are made aware that we have collected Personal Information from a child under the age of 16 through this Website, we will delete that Personal Information.

  1. How We Collect Your Personal Information

Direct Interactions With You

To help us serve you, we collect Personal Information from you when you directly interact with us on our Website. For example, we collect Personal Information from you when you submit information via forms on our Website, when you apply for employment at V&E, or when you share information with us in connection with our legal services.

Automatically via Technology

We may also collect Personal Information from you through automated technologies such as “cookies” and “tracking pixels” (which are also called pixel tags or pixels) or by tracking IP addresses. Additional information about these technologies is discussed in Section 12 (“Cookies”) below.

Through Third Parties

We may also collect your Personal Information from our various service providers in connection with the operation of our services. For example, we may receive information from background check service providers when you apply for employment at V&E.

  1. How We Use Your Personal Information

We may use your Personal Information for one or more of the following business purposes:

  1. Providing legal services to our clients;
  2. Responding to requests, inquiries, or complaints received;
  3. Communicating with potential clients about our firm and our services;
  4. Facilitating our recruiting efforts, including evaluating and responding to applications for employment;
  5. Interacting with and keeping track of our alumni;
  6. Marketing our services, which includes publishing announcements, legal memoranda, publications, and information about seminars and other V&E events;
  7. Improving our Website and related services, including auditing and monitoring its use;
  8. Conducting administrative or operational processes within our business;
  9. Complying with legal obligations and responding to requests from governmental or other regulatory authorities;
  10. Enforcing our Terms of Use;
  11. Identifying and deterring illegal, harmful, or unauthorized activity, including phishing attacks, cyberattacks, and identity theft; and
  12. Managing the safety and security of our employees, contractors, and visitors.

We may also use your Personal Information for purposes not outlined in this Privacy Notice if permitted by law and if those uses are reasonably aligned with the original purpose for which we collected it. In some situations, we may specifically request your consent to collect, use, store, transmit, or share your Personal Information, especially when required by law. However, we may use anonymous, de-identified, or aggregate information that does not reasonably identify you for any purpose, as permitted by applicable law.

  1. How We Protect Your Personal Information

As a law firm, we take the security of our information systems very seriously and have implemented generally accepted technical standards and operational security measures to prevent unauthorized access to data and to protect the integrity of our systems. We have implemented reasonable and appropriate steps to protect Personal Information from unauthorized access, improper use, unauthorized modification, unlawful destruction and accidental loss. We train our employees on data handling practices.

We will retain your Personal Information for no longer than is necessary for the purposes that it was collected, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements, unless a longer retention period is agreed upon or required under applicable law. Once the applicable retention period expires, we will delete or anonymize your Personal Information as necessary.

While we attempt to ensure the integrity and security of all Personal Information collected, held, or processed by us, please note that no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. Therefore, although we comply with our legal obligations with respect to the security of your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected security breach that involves your Personal Information and will notify you and the applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

  1. Sharing of Personal Information

We do not sell, rent, or trade your Personal Information.

We may share or disclose your Personal Information with the following third parties:

  • Service Providers. We may share your Personal Information with service providers to perform certain services on V&E’s behalf, such as IT service providers, suppliers, vendors or event organizers. We may also share your Personal Information with professional advisors such as local counsel, accountants, and auditors. These third-party providers have agreed to use the transferred information solely in accordance with the V&E’s instructions and subject to appropriate nondisclosure limitations;
  • Authorities and Others. We may disclose your Personal Information when we reasonably believe that such disclosure is required by law, when requested by a governmental authority or if it is necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims;
  • Business Transferees. We may disclose your Personal Information in connection with a sale or transfer of assets, or if V&E is otherwise involved with a reorganization or merger; and
  • Third Parties You Specify. We may share your Personal Information when you expressly consent to share your Personal Information with third parties that you specify.

Although we are committed to maintaining the confidentiality of your Personal Information, if demanded by compulsory process or otherwise required by law, we reserve the right to disclose such information without additional notice to you.

Over the last twelve (12) months, we have disclosed the categories of Personal Information discussed in Section 1 (“Personal Information We Collect About You”) of this Privacy Notice with service providers. For any inquiries, please contact us using the details in Section 13 (“Contact Us”) of this Privacy Notice.

  1. Third-Party Links

For your convenience, our Website might contain links to third-party websites (e.g., LinkedIn) whose information practices might differ from ours and are governed by their own privacy procedures, policies, and security measures. When you go to these other sites, the information you choose to provide will be used as described in the privacy policy and terms of use provided by such other sites. For instance, we may provide links to seminars, articles, and events offered or hosted by third parties. If you choose to visit any linked websites, we encourage you to review the applicable privacy policies, data protection standards, and security procedures before you submit any information via those sites, as we have no control over data submitted to, or collected by, those third parties.

  1. International Transfer of Personal Information

V&E is a global law firm with its primary data centers located in the United States, and the information you provide when visiting our Website will be stored primarily in the United States. Information that we collect from you may be transferred to and stored at a destination outside the European Economic Area (the “EEA”) or the United Kingdom (the “UK”). The level of information protection in countries outside of the EEA or the UK may be less than what is offered within the EEA or the UK. Accordingly, when we conduct such transfers, we have implemented appropriate safeguards to protect such transfer of information, including a valid data transfer agreement incorporating the European Commission’s approved model standard contractual clauses. You may request further information on these safeguards by emailing us at privacy@velaw.com.

  1. Your Rights in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom

The information provided in this section applies only to individuals in EEA and the UK. References to “Personal Information” in this Privacy Notice are equivalent to “personal data” as governed by European data legislation, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (the “GDPR”), the UK Data Protection Act of 2018 and other data legislation (collectively, the “European Data Legislation”). For the purposes of European Data Legislation, your Personal Information will be controlled by the V&E entity that is providing services to you and each V&E entity is regarded as an independent data controller of your Personal Information. All V&E entities are required to comply with V&E’s data privacy practices set forth in this Privacy Notice and internal data privacy policies.

If you are a resident of the EEA or the UK, you have the following rights regarding your Personal Information.

  • Being Informed. You have the right to be informed on how your Personal Information is collected and used in a clear, transparent, and easily accessible way.
  • Access. You have the right to request a copy of your Personal Information that we process. If you require additional copies, we reserve the right to charge a reasonable fee.
  • Correction/Rectification. You have the right to request the correction of any mistake in your Personal Information, whether incomplete or inaccurate, that we hold about you.
  • Deletion/Erasure. You have the right to request the deletion of your Personal Information in certain situations, such as when you withdraw your consent or if we no longer need your Personal Information.
  • Transfers/Portability. You have the right to request Personal Information that you provided us to be transferred in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format and to transmit your Personal Information to a third party.
  • Objection. You have the right to object to our processing of your Personal Information (i) for direct marketing purposes and (ii) where the legal ground of such processing is necessary for legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party. We will comply with your request unless we can demonstrate compelling legal grounds for the processing.
  • Restriction. You have the right to request that we limit our processing of your Personal Information in certain circumstances, such as when challenging the accuracy of your Personal Information.
  • Automated Individual Decision-Making. You have the right to not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning you or similarly affects you.
  • Withdrawal of Consent. If we are relying on your consent as our legal basis for processing your Personal Information, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. “Explicit Consent” would be required if we rely on consent as the condition to lawfully process “special categories of personal data” as defined in the European Data Legislation.

We may collect special categories of Personal Information about you when we act as a data controller. Special categories of Personal Information include specific demographic details such as race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. If you choose to disclose this information in connection with our services or for potential employment, we may collect details about your race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Additionally, as part of background checks conducted on job applicants and/or clients and in providing services on behalf of our clients, we may also collect information about prior criminal convictions and offenses, along with other special categories of Personal Information. If you provide us with, or we collect, any special categories of Personal Information or criminal conviction data, we will ask for your consent separately before processing such Personal Information.

If you are in the EEA, you have the right to file a complaint with the local data protection authority if you believe that we have not followed applicable data protection laws. You can find a list of local data protection authorities in EEA countries here. If you are in the UK, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office, which can be contacted here. For more information about how to exercise your rights under European Data Legislation, please reference Section 11 (“How to Exercise Your Rights”) below.

  1. State Privacy Rights

This section describes additional rights provided to individuals in states with privacy laws that provide additional rights to their residents, such as the Colorado Privacy Act, the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act, the Connecticut Personal Data Privacy and Online Monitoring Act, the Florida Digital Bill of Rights, the Texas Data Privacy Act, the Oregon Consumer Privacy Act and other state privacy laws (collectively, the “State Privacy Laws”).

For the purposes of this section, “Personal Information” has the meaning given to “personal data,” “personal information” or other similar terms in applicable State Privacy Laws, and does not include information exempted from the scope of applicable State Privacy Laws.

The State Privacy Laws may provide residents with some additional rights. However, please note that some State Privacy Laws do not provide these rights to their residents. Therefore, we may decline your request in certain cases as permitted by applicable state law. These rights include:

  • Right to Know. You have the right to know whether we are processing your Personal Information and request how we collect and use your Personal Information;
  • Right to Access. You have the right to request a copy of your Personal Information that we process;
  • Right to Appeal. You have the right to appeal if we deny your validly submitted request;
  • Right to Correct. You have the right to require the correction of any mistake in your Personal Information, whether incomplete or inaccurate, that we hold about you;
  • Right to Delete. You have the right to request the deletion of your Personal Information in certain situations, such as when you withdraw your consent or if we no longer need your Personal Information; and
  • Right to Non-Discrimination. You are entitled to all of the other rights described above free from discrimination.

If you are a resident of a state that has a State Privacy Law that provides you with additional rights, you have the right to file a complaint with your state’s data privacy authority if you believe that we have not followed your applicable State Privacy Law.

More information about your rights as a consumer may be found on your State’s Department of Justice Website. For more information about how to exercise your rights or make a request under your applicable State Privacy Law, please reference Section 11 (“How to Exercise Your Rights”) below.

  1. California Privacy Rights

This section describes additional rights provided to California residents under the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended from time to time, including by the California Privacy Rights Act and its implementing regulations (the “CCPA”). For the purposes of this section, “Personal Information” has the meaning given to “personal information” under the CCPA.

If you are a California resident, then you also have the following rights regarding your Personal Information:

Right to Know

You have the right to know and see what Personal Information we have collected about you including:

  1. The categories of Personal Information we have collected about you. More details are provided in Section 1 (“Personal Information We Collect About You”);
  2. The categories of sources from which the Personal Information is collected;
  3. The business or commercial purpose for collecting your Personal Information;
  4. The categories of third parties with whom we have shared your Personal Information; and
  5. The specific pieces of Personal Information we have collected about you.

Right to Delete

You have the right to request that we delete the Personal Information we have collected from you. There are a number of exceptions, however, that include, but are not limited to when the information is necessary for us or a third party to do any of the following:

  1. Provide you with services;
  2. Perform a contract between us and you;
  3. Protect your security and prosecute those responsible for breaching it;
  4. Protect the free speech rights of you or other users;
  5. Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 et seq.);
  6. Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws;
  7. Comply with a legal obligation; or
  8. Make other internal and lawful uses of the information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.

Right to Correct

You have the right to request that we correct the Personal Information we have collected from you. There are a number of exceptions that may apply, which include:

  1. If we cannot verify your identity to complete your request;
  2. The request is manifestly unfounded or excessive; or
  3. The information you are requesting to correct is publicly available information or other types of information exempt from the CCPA.

Right to Non-Discrimination/Retaliation

You have the right to be free from discrimination by us as a result of exercising your privacy rights under the CCPA, including by denying service or suggesting that you will receive different rates for services, level or quality of service. This also includes the right of an employee, job applicant, or independent contractor to not face retaliation for exercising their CCPA rights.

Sale of Your Personal Information

We do not sell your Personal Information, or the Personal Information of minors under the age of 16, for money or other valuable consideration (and have not done so during the prior 12 months).

More information about your rights as a California consumer may be found on California’s Department of Justice website. For more information about how to exercise your rights as a California Resident, please reference Section 11 (“How to Exercise Your Rights”) below.

  1. How to Exercise Your Rights

To exercise any of your privacy rights, please submit a verifiable consumer request to privacy@velaw.com or by calling our toll-free line, 1-800-833-1594.

We will contact you to confirm receipt of your request under European Data Legislation, State Privacy Laws, the CCPA, or other data protection laws and request any additional information necessary to verify your request. We verify requests by matching the information provided in connection with your request to the information contained in our records. Depending on the sensitivity of the request and the varying levels of risk in responding to such requests (for example, the risk of responding to fraudulent or malicious requests), we may request that you verify your identity. You may also designate an authorized agent to make a request under certain State Privacy Laws on your behalf, provided that you provide a signed agreement verifying such authorized agent’s authority to make requests on your behalf, and we may verify such authorized person’s identity using the procedures above.

The verifiable consumer request must:

  • Provide sufficient information to allow us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected Personal Information, or an authorized representative.
  • Describe your request with sufficient detail to allow us to understand, evaluate, and respond to it properly.

We will not be able to respond to your request or provide you with specific pieces of Personal Information if we cannot verify your identity and authority to make the request.

Our goal is to respond to any verifiable consumer request within 45 days of receiving it and, in any event, within the timeline required by applicable law. If we cannot meet that timeline, we will inform you in writing. Please contact us at privacy@velaw.com with any questions about this Privacy Notice.

  1. Cookies

When you visit our Website, we use cookies to improve your Website experience, provide additional security, and remember your preferences. For more details, see our Notice Regarding Cookies.

Our Website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses cookies to help us analyze how users navigate our site and what resources they access. The information generated by the cookie about your use of our Website will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use the information on our behalf for the purpose of evaluating use of our Website, compiling reports on Website activity for us, and providing us with other services relating to Website activity and internet usage. The IP address that your browser conveys within the scope of Google Analytics will not be associated with any other data held by Google. You may refuse to accept these cookies via your browser’s settings by clicking on this link. Please visit the Google Analytics privacy policy available here for additional information about how Google processes and protects your data through Google Analytics.

Our Website also uses tracking pixels provided by LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and X to collect non-identifiable, anonymous data such as demographic information. These tracking pixels allow us to attribute particular user actions on our Website (e.g., registering for a CLE) to materials posted on third-party social media platforms.

You can opt-out of this selection at any time by updating your social media platform profile privacy settings. For more information, please visit the links below.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/psettings/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/help/238318146535333

Instagram: https://help.instagram.com/196883487377501

X: https://x.com/en/privacy

Your browser may offer you a “Do Not Track” option, which allows you to signal to operators of websites, web applications and services that you do not want them to track your online activities. Our site does not currently support Do Not Track requests.

When you interact with V&E through the Zoom video conference platform for events or conference calls, we have access to the following additional information for troubleshooting purposes only:

  • Geolocation data;
  • IP address;
  • Computer hardware used to access the platform; and
  • Internet service provider.
  1. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Notice or requests relating to the exercise of your rights under European Data Legislation, State Privacy laws, the CCPA or other applicable data protection laws, please contact us at 888-471-0052 or privacy@velaw.com.

If you are making a request under European Data Legislation, State Privacy Laws, the CCPA, or other data protection laws, we will contact you to confirm that we have received your request. We may need additional information to verify your request, which could involve confirming your identity ourselves or using a third-party service. We verify requests by comparing the information you provide with our records. Depending on the nature of the request and the potential risks involved in responding to it (such as the risk of responding to a fraudulent or malicious request), we may ask for more information in order to verify your request. If you want to designate someone to make a request on your behalf, they must meet certain requirements set by your applicable data protection law. We may verify the identity of this authorized person using the procedures mentioned above.