Privacy

This site exists so that the people who worked at the firm can stay in touch after their time there has ended. It holds personal information about you, and this page says plainly what it holds, who can see it, where it lives, and how to change or remove it.

The short version: your information belongs to you. It is shown only to other members, only as much as you choose, and it is never sold, rented, or given to anyone outside this group.

What we hold about you

What you tell us. Your name and any former name; the name you prefer to be called; your email address; your mobile and other telephone numbers; your mailing address; the years you were at the firm; your office and practice group; your spouse or partner's name if you give it; a few sentences about what you are doing now; and a photograph if you upload one.

Most of this starts from a list the Committee assembled from firm records and from members' own recollections. Everything in it is yours to correct.

What the site records as you use it. When you last signed in; when you last confirmed your details are current; which kinds of message you have chosen to receive; and, if you opt in to text messages, the date you did so. If you post a gathering, an In Memoriam entry, a remembrance, a photograph or a message to the group, the site records that you are its author.

If you pledge toward the budget. The amount you pledge, the contribution the Committee asks of you once the budget is final, whether and when it has been received, and any short note the Committee adds about how it was paid (for example, a check number).

What the Committee may add. A short private note about you — for example that your email address is bouncing and someone should telephone you. You can ask to see any note held about you.

What we do not hold. No client information and no confidential information of the firm. No card or bank details: there are no dues, pledges are voluntary, and the site never takes a payment itself. No tracking of what you read, and no analytics of any kind.

Who can see it

Other members see what you choose to show them. Every item on your profile has its own setting — Members, Committee only, or Hidden — and you change it whenever you like on your own profile page. Your street address and any second telephone number start as Committee only; the rest start visible to members.

Committee members can see everything, including items you have hidden. This is deliberate and is written into the Bylaws (§4.3): it exists so the Committee can reach you if something matters, and for no other purpose. There are between three and five of them, they are named on the Committee page, and every administrative action they take is recorded in a log.

Pledges and contributions are seen by you and by the Committee, and by no other member. Members are never shown who has pledged or how much. When the Committee asks members to pledge again because pledges have fallen short, it may say how far short they are in total, but never anyone's own amount.

Nobody else. Not the public, not search engines — the site tells them not to index it, and no member's information is readable without signing in. Not the firm. The Network is independent of it; the firm has no role in running this site and no access to anything on it.

Members agree, when they join, to use each other's information only for personal contact — never for solicitation, marketing, client development, political campaigning or any commercial purpose — and never to pass the directory or any member's details to anyone outside the group.

Where it is stored

The site currently runs on a private server at Jeff Short's home in Indiana. It is reached through Cloudflare, which carries the traffic and encrypts it between you and the site; Cloudflare handles the connection and does not receive a copy of the directory.

The disk holding this information is not encrypted. That means someone who physically stole the machine could read what is on it. The Committee judges this an acceptable risk for a members' directory.

Backups are taken every night and kept off the server. Sign-in links and group messages are sent through Cloudflare's email service, which necessarily sees the address a message is going to and its contents. Text messages are not switched on. If they ever are, they will go through a messaging provider on the same terms, and this page will name it before any are sent.

How long we keep it

For as long as you are a member, and then as described below. Nothing is deleted automatically. Every year the site will email you to ask whether your details are still right; if you do not answer, you are marked as "not recently confirmed" for the Committee's attention and nothing else happens.

Changing or removing your information

Correct it yourself at any time on your profile page — that is the point of the site. You can also hide any item from other members there.

Leave the group by telling any Committee member via the site. Your entry is withdrawn from the directory immediately.

Have it deleted by asking a Committee member. Please say whether you want everything gone or only your contact details. Three things cannot be removed cleanly, and we would rather tell you now than surprise you later:

• anything you wrote about someone else — a remembrance on an In Memoriam page, a photograph caption — because it now belongs to that person's record as much as to yours;
• a pledge or contribution in a budget the Committee has already finalized, because it is part of the Network's accounts. It is kept without your name. A pledge in a budget still open for pledging is simply deleted; and
• the administrative log, which records that a Committee member added or changed an entry and when. Your name can be removed from it; the entry itself is what makes the Committee accountable.

Take a copy of your own entry at any time using "Save to my contacts" on your profile. Ask a Committee member if you want everything the site holds about you.

Messages

You choose which kinds of message you receive, and by which means, on your profile page. Text messages are never sent unless you have separately ticked the box agreeing to them, and you can reply STOP to any of them. Every group email carries the group's postal address and a link to stop receiving them.

Messages you send to the group are kept on the site so that members who missed one can catch up. Replies go to the sender, not to everyone.

If a member dies

The member's contact details are withdrawn from the directory, and the member is remembered on the In Memoriam page. Their entry remains in the directory, marked "In memoriam", with contact details hidden from other members; the Committee can still see them, so it can reach the family. The Committee will honor any request from the family about that page, including removing it.

If the Network closes

Members will be given a reasonable opportunity to download their own information and any shared photographs and history. All member information is then deleted.

Questions, and complaints

Message the Committee on the site. It reaches every Committee member. If you think something here has not been honored, say so — the Committee is answerable to the members, and reports to them once a year.

Adopted on October 1, 2026; amended on October 17, 2026 to cover budget pledges. The Committee will tell members before it changes this statement in any way that matters.