This policy explains what information Chicago Legal Connections collects when you use this website, who receives it, how long we keep it, and what choices you have. It is written to be read, not to be skimmed past.
There is one thing worth saying before anything else, because it is the most important and the most commonly misunderstood: we treat what you tell us as confidential, but confidentiality is not the same as attorney-client privilege. Privilege generally arises from a relationship with an attorney, not from submitting a web form. Section 9 explains exactly who may see what you send us.
1. Who we are
This website is operated by Special Solutions, Ltd., trading as Chicago Legal Connections, at 5 East College Drive, Suite 102, Arlington Heights, IL 60004.
Chicago Legal Connections is an intake and attorney-connection service. It is not a law firm. It does not provide legal services, legal advice or legal representation.
2. What this policy covers, and what it does not
This policy covers information we collect through this website and through our own intake process, whether you complete a form or speak to us by telephone.
It does not cover what an attorney does with your information after you become their client. At that point the attorney's own privacy practices and professional obligations apply, and they are separate from ours. If an attorney takes your matter, ask them for their own policy.
This policy is not a promise that information you send us is privileged or that it cannot be sought by anyone else in a legal proceeding.
3. Information you give us voluntarily
Everything in this section is information you choose to provide. You can use most of this website without giving us anything.
- Contact details — your name, telephone number, email address, city, county and ZIP code, and how you prefer to be contacted.
- Information about your legal matter — the type of matter, when and where it happened, what you say happened in your own words, and your answers to the intake questions.
- Health and treatment information — for injury matters we ask about your injuries, whether you received treatment, and which providers you have seen. This is sensitive information, and we collect it because an attorney cannot assess an injury matter without it.
- Documents you choose to upload — which may include photographs, police reports, medical records, incident reports, insurance correspondence or court papers.
- Your consents — including which optional communications you agreed to, and the exact wording you were shown at the time.
4. Information collected automatically
When you visit, our server records the pages requested, the time, your browser and device type, and the site that referred you.
We do not store your IP address. It is converted to an irreversible hash on arrival and used only for rate limiting and investigating abuse. An IP address is personal information, we only need to recognise repeat requests rather than identify you, and a hash does that job.
5. Cookies
Every cookie this website sets is strictly necessary — keeping you signed in to a secure area, protecting forms against cross-site request forgery, remembering your cookie choices, and anti-spam protection.
There are no analytics cookies, no advertising cookies and no social-media cookies. Our Cookie Policy lists every cookie individually.
6. Analytics
We use a self-hosted analytics system that sets no cookies, does not track you across other websites, and stores its data on our own server. Your visit data is not sent to any analytics company.
Analytics is not loaded at all on the intake pages, the attorney portal, or the administrative area. The simplest way to guarantee that your account of what happened is never sent to a third party is to have no third-party script on the page where you type it.
7. Advertising technologies — what we do not do
We think it is worth stating this affirmatively rather than leaving it to be inferred.
- We do not place advertising pixels or conversion-tracking tags on this website.
- We do not build remarketing audiences from your visit.
- We do not transmit your intake answers, your narrative, or any document you upload to any advertising platform.
- We do not sell or rent your personal information.
- We do not put personal information into URLs, where it could be captured in a referrer header or a server log elsewhere.
8. Service providers
This website runs on a server we control, located in the United States. A small number of providers support it: our hosting provider, our email delivery, and an anti-spam service that checks whether a form submission came from a person rather than a script.
Our anti-spam provider sees technical signals about your browser, not your intake answers.
9. Who receives your legal-matter information
This is the section that matters most, so it is the most specific.
Our own authorised intake personnel can see what you submit. Access is restricted by role, every view of a narrative or document is logged, and that log cannot be edited or deleted.
Where you have given the consent described at the end of the intake, we may share your information with one or more attorneys who are independently licensed in Illinois, so that they can consider whether to offer you representation.
An attorney does not see everything at once. Initially they see only a de-identified summary — the type of matter, the county, when it happened, and a factual outline with names removed — which is enough for them to check for conflicts of interest and decide whether they are able to consider the matter at all. Your name, your contact details, your narrative in your own words, and any documents you uploaded are released only after that attorney has recorded the outcome of a conflict check and accepted the matter for review. Each release is logged.
We do this because an attorney must check for conflicts before receiving confidential information about a prospective client, and because your account of your own injuries should not be read by firms that were never going to take the matter.
Where investigative support is appropriate and has been properly engaged for your matter, investigative personnel may receive the factual information needed for that work.
We may disclose information where we are required to by law, or where it is necessary to protect someone's safety.
No one else receives it. We do not sell it, rent it, or trade it.
10. Text messages and email
We will contact you about your inquiry using the method you chose. Those are service messages about something you asked us to do.
Text messages and marketing emails are separate, optional, and off unless you tick the box. Consent to receive text messages is not required to use this service. You can reply STOP to any text message to stop them, and use the unsubscribe link in any marketing email.
11. Security
The whole website is served over an encrypted connection. Narratives, free-text answers and uploaded files are encrypted where they are stored, so that a stolen copy of our database would not be readable. Uploaded files are stored outside the public area of the server and can only be retrieved through an authenticated route that re-checks permission on every single request. Photographs are re-processed on upload to remove embedded location data, because phone cameras record where a picture was taken.
Accounts with access to intake information require two-factor authentication.
We will not tell you that your information is perfectly secure, because no system is, and anyone who tells you otherwise is not being straight with you. What we can tell you is what we actually do, which is the list above.
12. How long we keep it
A vague answer here is a bad answer, so here is the actual schedule. These periods are under review by counsel and will be updated if they change.
- An intake you started but never submitted: 14 days, then deleted.
- An inquiry where no attorney accepted the matter: 18 months after the file is closed, then deleted.
- An inquiry where an attorney accepted the matter: 3 years after the file is closed, then deleted. The attorney holds the client file; we do not need to.
- Documents you uploaded: 90 days after the file is closed, or 7 days after they are transferred to the accepting attorney, whichever comes first.
- Our access and activity log: 7 years. The record of who looked at your information has to outlive the information itself, or it proves nothing.
13. Your choices and your requests
You can ask us for a copy of the information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, or withdraw your consent to an attorney reviewing it. You can opt out of text messages and marketing email at any time.
Use the controls at https://chicagolegalconnections.com/legal/privacy-choices, or contact us using the details below. We will ask you to verify your identity before we act on a request about someone's personal information, for obvious reasons.
Withdrawing consent does not undo a disclosure that has already been made. If an attorney has already received your information, we will tell you so.
14. Visitors from outside Illinois
This service is intended for legal matters arising in Illinois, but anyone can reach the website. Some states give their residents specific rights over their personal information. If you live in such a state and wish to exercise those rights, contact us and we will honour them.
15. Children
This service is for adults. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.
A parent or guardian may of course inquire about a matter involving their child. In that case we collect the adult's contact details as the person we are dealing with, and we ask only what is necessary about the child.
16. Changes to this policy
If we change this policy we will update the date at the top. If a change materially affects who receives your information, we will say so prominently rather than quietly republishing.
How to contact us
Write to Chicago Legal Connections, 5 East College Drive, Suite 102, Arlington Heights, IL 60004. Email info@chicagolegalconnections.com. Telephone 1-847-803-6922.
We offer both a postal address and an email address deliberately, so that you are never left with only one way to reach us about your information.