GUIDED INTERVIEWS TERMS OF USE AND DATA PRIVACY POLICY

Volunteer Lawyers Project (“VLP”) is non-profit organization based in the Greater Boston Area that provides free legal help to low-income clients.
This guided interview is provided as a free service for low-income residents of the state of Massachusetts. By using the service, you accept and agree to the terms of use and privacy policy set forth below.

Important disclaimers

• This guided interview does not constitute legal advice. You should consult a lawyer for legal advice.
• We use our best efforts to prepare the forms on this site and to keep them up to date. Law changes or court or local variations may make any forms generated by this site unenforceable.
• This website is offered completely without warranty, including an implied warranty of fitness. VLP disclaims all liability for your use of information on this website or your reliance on the forms created by a guided interview.
• You agree to indemnify and hold harmless VLP, its board of directors and employees for all claims arising out of your use of these guided interviews or the information that they give you.
• VLP does not offer technical support for the interviews provided on this website.
• Information you enter may not be protected by attorney-client privilege or attorney work product doctrine.
• Do not use this system to conduct unauthorized practice of law. If you do, you may face civil or criminal liability.

How you are allowed to use this website

• You must be over the age of 13 to use this website.
• Commercial use of this guided interview is not allowed. VLP retains the copyright to this guided interview.
• You may not re-sell access to our service.
• If you are representing a client, even for a fee, you may occasionally use this site during the course of your representation as long as you disclose that it is available for free online from VLP. If you intend to use it regularly, you should contact VLP for a special arrangement.
• Excessive use, abuse, or any use that interferes with the use of the system by others is not allowed.

What information we collect from you

• Information that you type in the guided interview, which may include private information such as your name, address, and identification numbers.
• Information sent automatically by your web browser, which includes information about your information service provider, your location and third-party analytics such as Google Analytics. This information is used to protect the system from unauthorized use and to understand the demographics of the users of our site and to improve the forms and interviews contained on this site.
• Information from your web browser may be stored in computer logs for up to 180 days and reviewed to maintain the security of our system. Anonymous analytics may be stored indefinitely.
• We use cookies and offer the option of using a social media account to login to identify you, to allow you to return to the site and finish an interview that is in progress. At any time you may delete your saved answers that are stored on our servers.

What Information We Share With Others

• We will never sell your data.
• Third-party analytics that we use for free to improve our website may also be used to improve Google’s delivery of services to you.
• We may use a third-party service to store saved answers from completed interviews. We will delete your information upon written request.
• A summary of anonymized data, but not the anonymized data itself, may be shared with courts and government entities.
• We may use anonymized data that you provide for research purposes in order to understand how to better provide legal services to the citizens of Massachusetts. Anonymous information may be shared with academic researchers to help with this goal. This information will never include your private, identifying details.

How we protect your information

• All information sent to our servers and sent back to you is encrypted with standard HTTPS SSL encryption to protect it from other users on your network or in between your computer and VLP. Your information is never sent over an unencrypted channel.
• We make use of software controls, firewalls, and continuous monitoring to protect your information and to maintain the security of the website.
• Access to your responses is limited to logged-in and authorized employees of Volunteer Lawyers Project and their agents only when necessary to make improvements to the system.
• However: if you share a link to an interview, any person with that link will have access to the responses you gave in that interview.