Hogue Hill, LLP, welcomes the opportunity to be of service to you. However, this website is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice; your use of this website does not create an attorney-client relationship or any duty of confidentiality of Hogue Hill, LLP, to you, or any duty or obligation of Hogue Hill, LLP, to advise you or to take any action on your behalf.
Receipt by Hogue Hill, LLP, of an e-mail or other contact from you, whether generated by a hyperlink from this website, or otherwise, does not create an attorney-client relationship with Hogue Hill, LLP, and does not create any duty of confidentiality of Hogue Hill, LLP, to you. You should not send any confidential or sensitive information to Hogue Hill, LLP, or to any of our attorneys or staff, unless you have first confirmed with one of our attorneys that the firm does not have a conflict of interest and is otherwise able to consider engagement as your attorney to handle the matter to which the confidential or sensitive information relates. This confirmation cannot be provided until the attorney has had an opportunity to inquire of, and receive response from, other attorneys in the firm.
Any information or documents communicated or sent to Hogue Hill, LLP, or its staff or attorneys before receipt of such a confirmation may not be treated as confidential or privileged (protected) information, and may not disqualify Hogue Hill, LLP, from representing a party adverse to you with regard to the matter which is the subject of the information or documents you send.
Review by Hogue Hill, LLP, of information or documents provided by you to Hogue Hill, LLP, or to its staff or attorneys, does not result in engagement of Hogue Hill, LLP, to provide legal services to you, and does not create any obligation of Hogue Hill, LLP, to take any action on your behalf. After conflict screening has been completed and confirmed to you, we may agree to review your information or documents, to evaluate the matter and whether Hogue Hill, LLP, is able and willing to accept engagement beyond such review. Such review does not constitute engagement of services, or create any duty or obligation of Hogue Hill, LLP, or its attorneys, to provide advice about the matter, or to provide legal services beyond initial review for evaluation, and if Hogue Hill, LLP, is not able or willing to accept engagement, it may return your information and documents (or if provided electronically, may delete the electronic files) without providing advice or taking action on your behalf. Until engagement of our services to take action on your behalf has been confirmed, typically by written engagement letter and payment of a deposit of funds to be held in trust for application to attorneys fees, as earned, and to costs, as incurred (a retainer), Hogue Hill, LLP, and its attorneys are not engaged to take action on your behalf and do not have an obligation or duty to take action on your behalf.
E-mail is inherently insecure and unencrypted e-mail is a poor means of communication between attorney and client, because it can result in unintended disclosure of client confidences, and can place the attorney-client privilege at risk. This is because e-mail can be intercepted by third parties at each hub of the Internet through which it passes, and most e-mail passes through multiple hubs to reach its destination. Hogue Hill offers encryption of e-mail and of e-mail attachments, which is intended to eliminate these risks, and most clients find this easy to use. Please let us know if you are willing to use encrypted e-mail, and we will send you a test message to allow you to see how easy our encryption system is to use. If you use unencrypted e-mail in your communications to us, we will understand this to mean that you accept the risk of use of unencrypted e-mail and that you authorize us to send e-mail and e-mail attachments to you by unencrypted e-mail, and that you accept the risk of interception of our e-mail correspondence with you. E-mail generated by a hyperlink from this website is not sent as encrypted e-mail. Free e-mail service agreements (and perhaps some paid services) may authorize the service provider to mine e-mail for data for marketing purposes. We cannot provide assurance of attorney-client confidentiality or that the attorney-client privilege will not be adversely affected by your communication with us or our communication with you through such service providers to whom you have granted data mining access, as we cannot limit their access to communications encrypted during transmission but which may be unencrypted at rest on their servers when opened by you. If you become a client, disclosure of communications between attorney and client, including communications by e-mail and any attachments, may waive the attorney-client privilege, and consequences of waiver of the privilege can be significant, and we advise that you not share them with anyone, including sharing by copying third parties or by forwarding to third parties.