Privacy Statement

This statement outlines the policies and practices of the American Health Lawyers Association ("Health Lawyers") regarding the collection and use of your personal information from your visit to our Web site(s) (at www.healthlawyers.org and www.ahla.org) and your use of our other Internet services. Our other Internet services include our listserves, Health Law Highlights, electronic subscription publications, and other Internet-based features.

Health Lawyers has created this privacy statement to demonstrate our commitment to maintaining the privacy of visitors to our Web site and users of our Internet services, and includes our policies for members and non-members of Health Lawyers.

1. Notice to Minors

Health Lawyers does not offer or sell products or services for purchase by children. If you are under eighteen years of age, you may not purchase products or services from, and you should not provide information to, Health Lawyers without the involvement and consent of a parent or guardian.

2. Changes to this Statement

This privacy statement will occasionally be updated to reflect new features and services or new privacy practices. The latest version will always be posted on our Web site at http://www.healthlawyers.org/privacy. The privacy policy was last updated on 12/12/2003.

3. Information We May Collect and How We May Use or Distribute Your Information

As described below, Health Lawyers collects general information about the usage of this Web site as well as any personal information that you provide. The personal information we collect depends on how you choose to make use of our Web site and our services, as detailed below. We will not distribute this information in a manner inconsistent with this policy unless compelled by law.

a. General Web site usage information

To monitor site usage and improve the quality of our Web site, we gather general information about the use of our site. We use Web server logs and industry-standard Web site statistics software to count the number of users who visit our Web site and to count the number of views of particular pages, as well as to track other general statistics about our Web site. We do not track individual users' visits to our Web site. At times Health Lawyers may share with third parties the aggregate, anonymous information about overall usage of our Web site and other Internet services that we collect, in order to provide general information about our Internet services, sell advertising, or establish sponsorships or other business relationships. We do not share any information about specific users.

b. Information Collected to Process Transactions

When visitors to our Web site or users of our other Internet services apply for or renew membership, order products, register for events, or sign up for services, we will collect personal information necessary to process the transaction. This may include your name, address, telephone and fax numbers, e-mail address, and credit card number or other payment information. The personal information you provide is encrypted and sent to us using a secure method, in order to assure that your personal information is securely and safely transmitted. However, please understand that no one can give an absolute assurance that information intended to be maintained as private, whether transmitted via the Internet or otherwise, cannot be accessed inappropriately or unlawfully by third parties. We have taken and will continue to take reasonable steps to ensure the secure and safe transmission of your personal information.

Please see the section "Members' Information" for details of how we may use members' personal information collected during membership application or renewal.

c. Payment Method Information

Payment information, such as your credit card details, is collected only to process a transaction and is stored in an encrypted format. While being used to process the transaction, your payment information is stored in an encrypted format and reasonable measures are taken to ensure your payment information is not vulnerable to theft or interception. We will not store or distribute your payment information in a manner that is not necessary for processing a transaction. We employ third parties to assist us in fulfilling order and other requests involving payment, and these third parties will have access to certain personal information in order to perform their services for us. We limit the use of all such personal information by these third parties to performance of such services. We take reasonable steps to obligate these third parties to handle information appropriately and confidentially.

d. E-mail Addresses

When contacting Health Lawyers at any of the e-mail addresses used for member and nonmember customer assistance, we may ask for certain personal information such as your member ID number, name, e-mail address, telephone number, or fax number. When collected for this purpose, the information is used solely to verify identity and to provide the assistance you are requesting.

Please see the section "Members' Information" for details of how we may use members' e-mail addresses.

Health Lawyers will not distribute or sell the e-mail addresses of members or nonmember customers to any third party.

e. Members' Information

Health Lawyers offers members certain features and services through the restricted-access "Members Section" of our Web site. The Members Section allows our members to access and update their Member Profiles, which consists of personal information we have collected from each member as part of their membership application, and to change their passwords. Member Profiles are maintained for every active member of the Association in our main membership database. This information includes information such as member ID number, name, firm/organization, address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address.

The personal information in Member Profiles is occasionally used by Health Lawyers to distribute marketing materials by mail, fax or e-mail. Members can elect not to receive certain printed mailings from Health Lawyers, or not to receive any faxes from Health Lawyers, or not to receive certain e-mail notices from Health Lawyers. However, electing not to receive any of these communications may mean that you will not receive important notices about your membership or products, events, or services that may be useful to you. In addition, Health Lawyers occasionally rents the names and mailing addresses (not e-mail addresses) of its members to third parties for promotional mailings, but restricts such third parties from otherwise using or retaining such information. Members can elect not to be included in these list rentals.

If you are a member and wish to elect not to be included in any of these communications, please contact us using the methods listed at the end of this document.

f. Information Collected to Secure Access to Members Section

Health Lawyers may also collect a password and password hint for each member who uses the online Members Section. We use this information to verify members' identities in order to prevent unauthorized access to members' personal information. Only a small number of Health Lawyers employees and employees at our third-party software vendor have access to this information. This information is accessed only when necessary to provide technical support to members or diagnose or repair problems with the Members Section software and is not otherwise disclosed to anyone, other than the member or his or her designee (with appropriate password hint), unless compelled by law.

Health Lawyers also allows members to elect to have the Members Section remember their login information between visits so they do not have to log in each time. This is done by checking a box labeled "Remember me" on the login page. This feature requires the placement of a small text file called a cookie (see next section) on the member's hard drive. The cookie tells the site that the member has logged in before. It does not actually contain the member's password or other login information.

g. Cookies

Several portions of the Health Lawyers Web site use cookies. Cookies are small data files that are sent by a Web site and stored on your computer. Cookies are used by most Web sites. Cookies can contain information about your use of our site, but they are not used to identify or track you personally. Cookies you receive from the Health Lawyers' Web site do not contain any personally identifiable information. We do not use cookies for advertising or other usage tracking purposes. The Health Lawyers site uses cookies only when they offer significant convenience or added benefit to you, or when the software used to provide the features of our Web site require them in order to function properly. These features include the Members Section, the Health Law Digest software, the National Job Bank, and our shopping cart.

If you do not want to accept cookies from our Web site or any others, most Web browsers have a setting to turn off the automatic acceptance of cookies. Use the Internet Options (in Microsoft Internet Explorer) or Preferences (in Netscape browsers) menu items to turn cookies off or receive warnings when cookies are sent to your computer. However, you should be aware that significant portions of our Web site will not function properly if you do not accept cookies.

h. Listserves and Health Law Highlights subscribers

Health Lawyers collects and uses the e-mail addresses of subscribers to our listserves (e-mail discussion groups) and Health Law Highlights (weekly news update) for the purposes of sending the e-mail messages that comprise these services. We may occasionally send e-mail messages with surveys regarding these services or promoting other Health Lawyers products or services to subscribers. Health Lawyers will not share the e-mail addresses of listserve or HLH subscribers with any third party, but listserve participants are advised in our listserve user guidelines, that our listserves are available to the public and therefore e-mail addresses and other information posted on our listserves are never private.

At the subscriber's sole discretion, the subscription record may also include the subscriber's name. Health Lawyers will not distribute to third parties the name information that may be gathered as part of listserve or Health Law Highlights subscription.

Health Lawyers also counts the number of subscribers to our listserves and Health Law Highlights and tracks the volume of messages sent to the listserves. For more information on the use of our listserves, please refer to our listserve usage guidelines available on our Web site.

i. Business Transfers

In the unlikely event that Health Lawyers or substantially all of the assets of Health Lawyers are acquired by a third party either in a bankruptcy court proceeding or otherwise, it is possible that personal information of members and non-member customers would be one of the assets transferred. In such an event, Health Lawyers would take reasonable steps to require the third party to maintain our privacy policies and practices.

4. Links to Other Web Sites

Health Lawyers' Web site and many of our print and electronic publications contain many links to other Web sites. These other Web sites may send their own cookies to users, collect data or solicit personal information. Health Lawyers is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of these other Web sites. Please check with the other sites to determine their privacy policies and how they may collect or use information.

5. Security

AHLA staff are educated on this policy and obligated to follow it. Access to personal information is limited to select employees and the information is stored in an encrypted format. We also take steps to obligate third parties to handle information appropriately and confidentially.

6. Contacting Health Lawyers About Privacy Issues

We welcome your comments, suggestions, or questions about our privacy statement and Health Lawyers' privacy practices. We also welcome members' requests to elect not to receive certain forms of communication from Health Lawyers and third parties.

Please contact us:

By e-mail at privacy@healthlawyers.org
By phone at 202-833-1100
By fax at 202-833-1105
By mail at:

Attn: Web Site Privacy
American Health Lawyers Association
1025 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036-5405

Site Security Information

The Health Lawyers Web site features a number of security features designed to make your use of the site worry-free. (You may also be interested in our privacy policy.)

We strive to make our online ordering, registration, and services useful and safe. Since use of these services often requires personal or financial information, we make every effort to ensure that the information is transferred and stored securely.

We provide two layers of security for your online transactions. First, the information you submit via our secure forms is encrypted, so it is unreadable without a special access code. Only the Health Lawyers staff can decrypt the information. Second, all information sent using the secure forms or our shopping cart is transmitted to our server using the Secure Sockets Layer ("SSL") protocol. SSL is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol ("HTTP") that creates a secure connection.

If you opt to let us store your credit card for future transactions on our site, that information is also encrypted as it is transmitted to our secure Web server, where it is safely stored. No third party can access that information.

As you browse the site and order publications, register for programs, or renew your membership, you will know you are in a secured area when you see either of these images:

The Secured Area image indicates that the page you are viewing is using SSL. It also indicates that an order or registration form supports encryption.

If you have questions regarding our security features or would like more information, please contact our Web Site support team.