Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains what information the Law Office of Jacob Binnall, Esq. collects through attorneybinnall.com, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the choices you have. We work with immigrant communities, and we understand that sharing personal information can carry real risk. We keep what we collect to a minimum, and we protect it.

1. Who this policy covers

This policy applies to attorneybinnall.com, including the Portuguese-language pages at /pt, and to information you send us through the website's forms, our email address, or our WhatsApp number.

It does not govern the confidential handling of information once you become a client. That relationship is governed by your signed engagement agreement, the attorney-client privilege, and the Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct, all of which protect your information more strictly than this policy does.

2. Information you give us

We only receive what you choose to send. Depending on how you contact us, that may include:

• Consultation and contact forms: your first and last name, preferred language, email address, WhatsApp country code and phone number, how you heard about us, the type of immigration help you need, how urgent your situation is, and any description of your situation you choose to write.
• The AI intake assistant on our contact page: whatever you type into the chat, which is used to work out what kind of help you need before a person reads it.
• Email and WhatsApp messages: anything you include in your message, including documents or photographs you send us.
• Payments: your name, an email address for the receipt, an invoice or matter number, the payment amount, and billing ZIP code. Card details are entered into LawPay's secure form and are never stored on our servers.

Because we practice immigration law, the information you send may reveal your immigration or citizenship status, your national origin, your family relationships, or your experience as a survivor of crime, abuse, or trafficking. We treat every category of that information as sensitive, whether or not a particular law labels it that way.

Please do not send us documents or detailed case facts before we have agreed to represent you. Use the consultation form to tell us enough to evaluate your situation, and wait for us to confirm before sending more.

3. Information collected automatically

Like nearly every website, ours records limited technical information when you visit:

• Your IP address, which indicates your approximate location (usually the city or region level)
• Your browser type, device type, operating system, and language setting
• Which pages you visited, how long you stayed, and which page or search sent you here
• The date and time of your visit

We use this to understand which articles are useful and where our visitors come from. We do not use it to try to identify you personally.

4. Cookies and analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 to measure website traffic. It places small files called cookies on your device (typically named _ga and _ga_<id>) so it can tell a returning visitor from a new one. Google receives your IP address as part of this process and, as configured for this website, anonymizes it before storing it. Google Analytics retains usage data for the retention period set in our account.

Our pages also load typefaces from Google Fonts, which means Google's servers receive your IP address when a page loads.

We do not use advertising cookies, retargeting pixels, or cross-site tracking, and we do not allow anyone to build advertising profiles from your visit to this site.

Turning analytics off

• Install Google's Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
• Block or delete cookies in your browser settings, or browse in a private or incognito window.
• Turn on Global Privacy Control in a browser or extension that supports it. We treat a Global Privacy Control signal as a valid opt-out request for any sale or sharing of personal information, though as explained below we do not sell or share it in the first place.

5. How we use information

We use what we collect to:

• Respond to your inquiry and evaluate whether we can help with your matter
• Run a conflicts check before agreeing to represent you
• Communicate with you by email, phone, or WhatsApp about your inquiry or your case
• Process payments you make through our payment page
• Understand which content is useful and improve the website
• Keep records we are required to keep as a law practice, and comply with legal and professional obligations
• Protect the security of the website and prevent fraud or abuse

We do not send marketing emails to people who contact us for a consultation unless they ask to receive them.

6. When we share information

We share information only in the limited situations below.

Every vendor above is contractually limited to processing information on our instructions and for our purposes. None of them is permitted to sell it or use it for their own advertising.

We may also disclose information where the law requires it: in response to a valid court order, subpoena, or other lawful process; to comply with the rules of professional conduct that govern attorneys; or where disclosure is necessary to prevent imminent harm. If we ever receive legal process demanding information about you, we will assert every objection, privilege, and protection available, and we will notify you unless the law forbids it.

7. What we never do

8. Confidentiality and legal advice

We treat everything you send us as confidential, and we review consultation requests personally.

Sending a form, an email, or a WhatsApp message does not create an attorney-client relationship. That relationship begins only when we have completed a conflicts check and you have signed a written engagement agreement. Until then, the information you send is protected by our professional duty of confidentiality but may not be protected by the attorney-client privilege in the same way.

Our contact page offers an AI intake assistant. What you type is sent to a secure function on our own site, which passes it to Anthropic's Claude API to generate a reply and to organize what you told us into a summary for Attorney Binnall. Your completed submission is then emailed to us through Resend and logged to a private spreadsheet we control.

The assistant collects screening information only. It does not provide legal advice, it does not create an attorney-client relationship, and nothing you type into it is used to train artificial intelligence models. A person reads every submission. If you would rather not use it, email or message us instead and you will reach the same place.

9. Children and minors

This website is written for adults and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from a child under 13 through this website.

Some of the services we describe, including Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, involve minors directly. When a parent, guardian, sponsor, caseworker, social worker, or attorney submits information about a minor through our forms, we treat that information as confidential matter-related information under this policy and under the rules of professional conduct, and we handle it with the additional care that cases involving children require.

If you believe a child has submitted personal information through this website without a parent or guardian's involvement, contact us at jake@attorneybinnall.com and we will delete it.

10. How we protect information

• The entire website is served over an encrypted HTTPS connection.
• Card payments are processed by LawPay using 256-bit SSL encryption. Full card numbers are never transmitted to or stored on our servers.
• Access to inquiries and client files is limited to Attorney Binnall and staff who need it to do their work, each of whom is bound by the duty of confidentiality.
• We maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to meet our obligations under Massachusetts data security regulations, 201 CMR 17.00.
• We collect as little as possible, which is itself a security measure.

No method of transmitting information over the internet is completely secure. If you are in a situation where someone else may have access to your devices or accounts, tell us and we will find a safer way to communicate with you.

11. How long we keep it

• Inquiries that do not become cases: kept only as long as needed to run a conflicts check and document that we declined the matter, and then deleted.
• Client files: kept for the period required by the Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct and applicable record-retention obligations, then securely destroyed.
• Payment records: kept as long as required for accounting, tax, and trust-accounting rules.
• Analytics data: kept for the retention period set in our Google Analytics account.

12. Your choices

Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

• Tell you what information we hold about you
• Correct anything that is wrong
• Delete what we hold, subject to the record-retention duties that apply to a law practice
• Stop contacting you
• Send you a copy of the information you gave us

Email jake@attorneybinnall.com and we will respond within 30 days. We will never charge you for making a request or treat you differently because you made one.

13. California privacy rights

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act, gives you specific rights.

Categories of information we collect

• Identifiers: name, email address, telephone or WhatsApp number, IP address
• Commercial information: payments made and services requested
• Internet or network activity: pages viewed and referring source
• Geolocation data: approximate location derived from your IP address
• Sensitive personal information: citizenship or immigration status, and any information about national origin or victimization that you choose to share with us

We collect this information directly from you and, for the technical categories, automatically as you use the website. We use it only for the purposes described in section 5, which are purposes a reasonable person would expect. We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for any purpose beyond providing our services, so the right to limit its use does not restrict anything we actually do. We honor requests anyway.

Your rights

• Know what personal information we have collected, used, and disclosed, and where we got it
• Delete personal information we hold about you
• Correct inaccurate personal information
• Opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information. We do not sell or share it, so there is nothing to opt out of, but we honor Global Privacy Control signals regardless
• Limit the use of sensitive personal information
• Non-discrimination for exercising any of these rights

To make a request, email jake@attorneybinnall.com or call (508) 656-4540. We will verify your identity by matching the information you give us against what we already hold. An authorized agent may submit a request on your behalf with written permission from you.

14. GDPR and UK rights

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, the General Data Protection Regulation and its UK equivalent apply to information we collect from you. For that information, Jacob Binnall, Esq. is the data controller.

Our legal bases

• Steps taken at your request before entering a contract: responding to your consultation request
• Performance of a contract: representing you once you become a client
• Legal obligation: records, conflicts checks, and professional conduct rules
• Consent: analytics cookies and any optional communications, which you can withdraw at any time
• Legitimate interests: website security and understanding how our content is used, balanced against your rights
• Establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims: the basis on which we process special categories of data, including information about immigration status, national origin, or victimization, alongside your explicit consent where you provide it

Your rights

You may request access to your data, correction, erasure, restriction of processing, or portability, and you may object to processing based on legitimate interests. Where processing rests on consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting what came before. Email jake@attorneybinnall.com; we respond within one month. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your national data protection authority, or with the UK Information Commissioner's Office.

Some rights are limited where the information is covered by legal professional privilege or by our record-retention duties as a law practice. We will tell you if that applies to your request.

15. International visitors

We practice in Massachusetts, and our website and email are hosted in the United States. If you contact us from Brazil, Portugal, the European Union, the United Kingdom, or anywhere else, the information you send is transferred to and stored in the United States, where privacy laws differ from those in your country. Where a transfer from the EEA or the UK requires a safeguard, we rely on your explicit consent to the transfer or on the necessity of the transfer for a contract or legal claim. By sending us information, you understand that it will be processed in the United States.

16. Links to other sites

Our articles link to government agencies, courts, news organizations, and community resources, and our pages link to Instagram, WhatsApp, and LawPay. Once you follow a link, you are on someone else's website and their privacy policy applies. We are not responsible for what other sites do with your information.

17. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will post the updated version here and change the "Last updated" date at the top. If a change materially affects how we handle information we already hold about you, we will make a reasonable effort to notify you directly.

18. How to reach us

For any question about this policy, or to make a request about your information:

• Email: jake@attorneybinnall.com
• Phone and WhatsApp: (508) 656-4540
• Attorney: Jacob Binnall, Esq., Massachusetts

We answer in English and Portuguese.