Terms and Conditions of Use
 

PLEASE READ THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS SITE. The term "asylumlaw.org" includes asylumlaw.org, inc. (the owner and general administrator of www.asylumlaw.org), its staff, directors and officers and the individuals and partnering organizations that provide information for various portions of the site. By using this site, you signify your consent to these terms and conditions. We reserve the right, at our discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions of these terms at any time. Please check these terms periodically for changes. Your continued use of asylumlaw.org following the posting of changes to these terms will mean you accept these changes.

1. No Legal Services or Attorney-Client Relationship
The password-protected portion of the www.asylumlaw.org site is for lawyers, other legal professionals, law students and those who advocate on behalf of asylum-seekers. No attorney-client communications or client confidences should be posted on that portion of the site. Your use of this site does not create any attorney-client or fiduciary relationship between you and asylumlaw.org, inc. (the administrator and owner of this site) or its employees. Your use of this site also does not create any attorney-client or fiduciary relationship between you and any other user of the site.

Although this web site may provide information concerning potential legal issues, it is not a substitute for legal advice from qualified counsel. You should not and are not authorized to rely on this web site as a source of legal advice.

No user of the site shall be entitled to claim detrimental reliance on any views received, or to claim that another user providing answers or substantive materials has any duty to update such material or to use care to protect the interests of the recipient. Each user undertakes to protect his or her client’s interests by fitting the information received to the facts and circumstances of the case, by taking whatever steps are necessary to check all information and by personally assuring that the advice s/he provides is based on accurate and complete information and research from any available sources.

2. Preserving Client Confidentiality
You are cautioned that the posting on this site of confidential information relating to a client or case may constitute a breach of your ethical obligation to protect client confidences and may result in a waiver of attorney work product protection and the attorney-client privilege. You are further cautioned that although asylumlaw.org takes steps to prevent likely adversaries from accessing the asylumlaw.org discussion forum, asylumlaw.org cannot guarantee that your adversaries will not have access to the messages and/or questions you post. Confidential information relating to a client or case, including a client's name, should therefore never be posted on this site.

Confidential client information includes any information relating to a client or case that is (1) not generally known, and is (2) acquired by a lawyer, other legal professional or law student during the course of, or as a result of, the representation of that client. Information relating to a client is deemed not generally known when such information could not be acquired without special knowledge or substantial effort or expense.

3. Privacy and Confidentiality
asylumlaw.org requires that users supply personal information during the registration process prior to using the password-protected portions of the site. Using the email addresses provided at registration, asylumlaw.org may periodically send email to the registered users who indicated during the registration process that they would like to be added to the asylumlaw.org mailing list. A registered user can indicate that s/he does not wish to receive such email by editing their user profile, or by sending an email to asylumlaw.org at mailbox@asylumlaw.org.

asylumlaw.org will use reasonable efforts to prevent non-members from accessing information posted within the password-protected areas on the site. Except as expressly provided herein or as required by law, asylumlaw.org will not knowingly disclose the contents of information posted in the password-protected areas to anyone other than addressees, authorized recipients, or those to whom such disclosure is necessary to assure forwarding or delivery or the security or quality of the system.

4. Rules Relating to Submission and Deletion of Materials
asylumlaw.org registered users are entitled to submit memoranda and other substantive materials for posting on the site. In posting works on asylumlaw.org, you are legally responsible for honoring the rights of others, including, but not limited to, intellectual-property rights (copyright, patent, and trademark), the right to privacy, and the right not to be defamed. asylumlaw.org registered users shall not submit any material that is infringing, defamatory, violative of any applicable law or otherwise detrimental to the system.

Since the law as to jurisdiction of on-line systems is unsettled, we urge you to consider the possible effect of laws outside asylumlaw.org's location (Chicago) or your own residence on your submissions. asylumlaw.org is open to users worldwide (and works published on the World Wide Web, Usenet, or other such services are accessible to anyone on the Internet), and asylumlaw.org cannot guarantee that works you post on this site will not subject you to legal sanctions in other jurisdictions.

asylumlaw.org reserves the right to delete (or to refuse to post) any materials for any reason it deems appropriate. asylumlaw.org also reserves the right to edit materials submitted by members.

asylumlaw.org shall be used only in a noncommercial manner by you. By using www.asylumlaw.org, you agree that you will not, without the express approval of asylumlaw.org, distribute or otherwise publish any material containing any solicitation of funds, promotion, advertising, or solicitation for goods or services. You specifically agree that soliciting other asylumlaw.org users to join or become members of any commercial on-line service or other organization is expressly prohibited.

Each party that submits materials agrees that in uploading files to the system, it will use only computer systems employing reasonable means to check for and prevent the spread of computer viruses.

5. Rules Regarding Copyright on Submitted Materials
In posting a work on a service offered by asylumlaw.org, you authorize other members who have access to that service to make personal and customary use of the work, but not otherwise to reproduce or disseminate it unless you give permission for such dissemination.

6. Rules Relating to Posting of Messages to the Discussion Forum
asylumlaw.org allows its registered users to submit questions/comments to its discussion forum, which is available to registered users only. You agree, through your use of the discussion forum that you will not use it to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law. You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by asylumlaw.org, inc.

Please note that advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are inappropriate on the discussion forum.

7. No Warranties and Limitation of Liability
Information provided on this web site is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including without limitation warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or noninfringement. asylumlaw.org periodically adds, changes, improves, or updates the information and documents on this web site without notice. asylumlaw.org assumes no liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in the content of this web site. Your use of this web site is at your own risk. EACH USER BY REGISTERING TO USE THIS SITE WAIVES ANY AND ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE USAGE OF THE SYSTEM OR MATERIAL OR INFORMATION MADE AVAILABLE THROUGH THE SYSTEM, WHETHER SUCH CLAIMS ARE AGAINST ASYLUMLAW.ORG OR ANY OTHER PERSON WHO HAS SUPPLIED MATERIAL TO THE SYSTEM. Under no circumstances and under no legal theory shall asylumlaw.org, its suppliers, or any other party involved in creating, producing, or delivering this Web site’s contents be liable to you or any other person for any damages, including but not limited to indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages of any character arising from your access to, or use of, this web site.

You agree to indemnify and hold asylumlaw.org, its users and its partnering organizations harmless from any claim arising as a result of your use of the system or the materials you upload or post on the system.

8. Rules Regarding asylumlaw.org Copyrights
asylumlaw.org retains its copyright in the layout and graphics of this site, the collective and compilation copyrights in all databases and navigation design, and all other content created by employees of asylumlaw.org.

asylumlaw.org authorizes you to view, copy, download, and print the materials on this web site in which it has a copyright for the purpose of fair use, subject to the condition that the materials may be used for personal, noncommercial, and informational purposes, including the representation of asylum-seekers.

asylumlaw.org makes no claim to public documents. The reproduction, copying, or redistribution of materials in which asylumlaw.org has a copyright for commercial purposes is prohibited without the express written permission of asylumlaw.org. To obtain permission to copy portions of this site, please send an e-mail to mailbox@asylumlaw.org. We will evaluate your request and advise you as soon as possible. asylumlaw.org reserves the right to refuse permission to copy, distribute, broadcast, or publish any of its copyrighted material, including text and images on our web site.

Nothwithstanding anything to the contrary, nothing herein prohibits the use of asylumlaw.org's graphics for the purposes of linking to asylumlaw.org.

9. Rules Regarding asylumlaw.org Service Marks and Trade Dress
asylumlaw.org service marks and trade dress identify asylumlaw.org products and services and let the public know the source of those products and services. You may make fair use of our service marks in referencing our products and services (for example, in a magazine article or in creating a link to asylumlaw.org) without our permission, provided you follow standard trademark usage practices and provide proper attribution. Other uses require our written permission. If you are in doubt as to whether you need our permission for a specific type of use, please ask us.

10. Links to Third Party Sites
If you use any links in this web site to web sites not maintained by asylumlaw.org, you will leave the asylumlaw.org web site. The linked sites are not under the control of asylumlaw.org and asylumlaw.org is not responsible for the contents of any linked site or any link contained in a linked site. asylumlaw.org provides these links to you only as a convenience and the inclusion of any link does not imply recommendation, approval or endorsement by asylumlaw.org of the site, nor does it imply that the linked site recommends, approves of, or endorses asylumlaw.org.

11. Termination
Each registered user is free to terminate his or her membership at any time for any reason. asylumlaw.org reserves the right to terminate or suspend the privileges of any person to use asylumlaw.org and its related services without notice for any reason in its sole discretion, including but not limited to having reached the conclusion that any member has breached these terms or applicable rules. asylumlaw.org shall be free to terminate its provision of this service at any time.

12. Arbitration
Any controversy or claim arising out of or relating to your use of asylumlaw.org, these Terms and Conditions for asylumlaw.org or the breach thereof, will be settled by binding arbitration conducted before one arbitrator who is knowledgeable in computer and cyberspace law. The site of any such arbitration shall be in Chicago, Illinois. The arbitration will be conducted in accordance with the then applicable Commercial Arbitration Rules of the American Arbitration Association. The award rendered by the arbitrator will be binding and conclusive on the parties and judgment upon such award may be entered in any court having jurisdiction thereof. Each party will bear its own costs and expenses, including fees and expenses of counsel, associated with the arbitration. The arbitrator will not be empowered to award punitive damages to either party.

13. Integration
These terms and conditions, including any supplemental rules posted on the system, incorporated herein by reference, constitute the complete statement of the agreement between the parties, which supersedes and merges all prior proposals, understandings, and all other agreements, oral and written, between the parties relating to the subject matter hereof.

14. Severability
If any provision of these terms is found to be invalid, void, or unenforceable, the parties agree that the remaining provisions hereof will not be affected thereby, that the provision in question may be replaced by the lawful provision that most nearly embodies the original intention of the parties, and that these Terms and Conditions for asylumlaw.org will in any event remain valid and enforceable.
 
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