Privacy Notice for California Job and Partnership Candidates

Effective Date: July 7, 2023

1. Introduction

This privacy notice (“Notice”) describes the categories of personal information that Cooley LLP and its affiliates (“Cooley,” “we,” “us” and “our”) collects about California residents who apply or are recruited for a job or partnership with us or one of our affiliates (“candidates”), and how we use and disclose that information.

This Notice applies to personal information collected about you in your capacity as a job or partnership candidate. See our Privacy Policy for information about our practices when you use our website or otherwise interact with us offline or online in the same manner that a website visitor or someone who is not a job or partnership candidate may interact with us.

For purposes of this Notice, “personal information” and “sensitive personal information” have the meanings given in the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (collectively, the “CCPA”).

This Notice does not create or form part of any employment contract or partnership agreement.  

If you have questions about this Notice, please contact us via email at privacy@cooley.com or via telephone at +1-866-714-5537.

2. Information we collect about candidates

2.1 Categories of personal information

We may collect and process the following categories of personal information during the application and recruitment process:

• Contact information, such as home address, telephone number, and email address;
• Information from job application materials or recruiters, such as your job or partnership application, résumé or CV, cover letter, writing samples, references, work history, education transcripts, whether you are subject to prior employer obligations, and information that referrers provide about you;
• Professional qualifications, such as licenses, permits, memberships, and certifications;
• Information from the application process, such as any phone-screens, interviews, evaluations and outcomes of recruiting exercises;
• Immigration status and other information that would allow us to verify your employment eligibility;
• Biographical information, such as name, gender/gender identity, pronouns, date of birth, racial or ethnic characteristics, professional history, references, language proficiencies, education details, and information you provide to us or make publicly available through job search or career networking sites;
• Job preferences, such as desired position and compensation, location preferences and willingness to relocate;
• Employment history; such as your prior employers, how long you worked with each of your prior employers, and your prior positions;
• Background check information, such as information necessary to complete background, credit, drug/alcohol and/or other checks when permitted by law, and information received during these checks; 
• Information needed to understand and assess accommodation requests regarding potential disabilities or other health conditions;
• Audio, electronic, and visual information, such as video or audio recordings, photographs, recordings of conversations made with consent, and security camera recordings of physical activity in our offices;
• Medical information if you meet with us in person, such as your body temperature, health symptoms, vaccination status and other screening information in connection with Cooley’s health and safety plans and protocols, including screening required to access Cooley offices/facilities and other measures designed to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 or other infectious diseases; and
• Other information you provide to us.

Providing personal information to us is voluntary.  However, if you do not provide sufficient information, we may be unable to consider your application or, if you are hired, any subsequent promotion, transfer or relocation.

In certain cases, we may ask you for additional information for purposes of complying with applicable laws.  We may also inquire about criminal and/or credit records. We will do so only where permitted by applicable law.  

2.2 Sensitive personal information and protected classification characteristics

With the possible exception of “contact information,” “job preferences,” and “employment history,” all of the categories above include, or contain information from which it may be possible to infer, sensitive personal information or characteristics of protected classifications under California or federal law if applicable. However, we do not use or disclose sensitive personal information in ways that would be subject to a California resident’s right to limit the use or disclosure of his or her sensitive personal information under the CCPA.

2.3 Sources of personal information

We collect personal information from you when you apply for a job or partnership, and throughout the application or recruitment process.  We may also collect your personal information from other sources and combine it with the personal information you provide us.  For example, we may collect your personal information from:

• Job board websites you may use to apply for a job or partnership with us;
• Prior employers or law firms that provide us with employment or other references;
• Professional references that you authorize us to contact;
• Pre-employment screening services, such as background check providers (where permitted by law);
• Employment agencies and recruiters; 
• Your educational institutions; 
• Your public social media profile or other publicly-available sources; 
• Other Cooley personnel; and
• Recruiting or other events Cooley sponsors. 

This section generally describes our practices currently and our practices during the preceding twelve (12) months.

3. How we use personal information about candidates

3.1 Purposes for which we use personal information

We may use the categories of personal information above for the following purposes:

• Recruitment management. Managing recruitment generally, such as:
  • operating the careers website we maintain at https://www.cooley.com/careers or any other site to which this Notice is posted (“Careers Site”);
  • conducting background checks and other pre-employment screening (where permitted by law);
  • analyzing and improving our application and recruitment processes;
  • accommodating disabilities or health conditions;
  • communicating with you regarding your candidacy, opportunities with Cooley or about the Careers Site and any changes to applicable terms or policies; and
  • other business operations.
  
  
• Compliance, safety and protection, such as:
  • complying with or monitoring compliance with legal and other requirements, such as tax, audit, recordkeeping, reporting, verifying identity and eligibility to work, and equal opportunities monitoring requirements, where applicable;
  • complying with internal policies and procedures;
  • complying with lawful requests and legal process, such as to respond to subpoenas or requests from government authorities;
  • protecting our, your or others’ rights, safety and property, including by complying with applicable public health guidelines and requirements, including guidance from the Centers for Disease Control or other public health authorities relating to the prevention and control of COVID-19 or other infectious diseases;
  • investigating and deterring against fraudulent, harmful, unauthorized, unethical or illegal activity, or conduct in violation of our policies or procedures;
  • controlling access to and monitoring our physical premises (e.g., by requiring health screenings to access offices/facilities;
  • pursuing legal rights and remedies, including investigating, making and defending complaints or legal claims; administering and enforcing internal policies and procedures; and
  • providing information to government authorities, law enforcement, courts or private parties where we have a good-faith belief it is necessary for the foregoing purposes.


• Analytics. Creating anonymous, aggregated or de-identified data that we use and disclose to analyze our application and recruitment activities, business and for other lawful business purposes. We do not to attempt to re-identify de-identified information derived from personal information, except for the purpose of determining whether our de-identification processes comply with applicable law.

3.2 Disclosing personal information

We may disclose your personal information to the following parties to facilitate one or more of the purposes described above:

• Affiliates. Our affiliates, for purposes consistent with this Notice or to operate shared infrastructure, systems and technology.
• Cooley service providers. Companies that provide us with services that help us manage the recruiting process and operate our business, such as job boards, recruiters, interviewing and testing, pre-employment screening, interview travel booking and expense reimbursement (where applicable), relocation (where applicable), and recruitment analytics.
• Government authorities, law enforcement and others. Government authorities, law enforcement, courts, and others for the purposes described in the Compliance, safety and protection section above.
• Business transfer participants. Parties (and their advisors) to transactions and potential transactions pursuant to which we transfer some or all of our business, including your personal information, such as a merger, consolidation, or reorganization, or in the event of bankruptcy or dissolution. 
• Professional advisors. Lawyers, immigration advisors, and other outside professional advisors who require your information in the course of providing their services. 
• Clients and strategic prospects. Our clients and other parties for strategic development and client prospecting.
• Other parties not listed above but that are identified at or before the point at which we collect your personal information.

3.3 Retention

4. California privacy rights

4.1 Your California privacy rights

California residents have the rights listed below under the CCPA. However, these rights are not absolute and are subject to certain exceptions, and in certain cases, we may decline your request as permitted by law.

• Information.  You can request the following information about how we have collected and used your personal information:
  • The categories of personal information that we have collected.
  • The categories of sources from which we collected personal information.
  • The business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling personal information.
  • The categories of third parties to which we disclose personal information.
  • The categories of personal information that we sold or disclosed for a business purpose.
  • The categories of third parties to whom the personal information was sold or disclosed for a business purpose.
• Access. You can request a copy of the personal information that we have collected about you. 
• Deletion. You can ask us to delete certain personal information that we have collected from you.
• Correction. You can ask us to correct inaccurate personal data that we have collected about you.
• Opt-out of sales or sharing of personal information.  California residents can opt out of any “sale” of their personal information or “sharing” of personal information for cross-contextual behavioral advertising as such terms are defined under the CCPA.  We do not sell or share personal information of applicants in the manner restricted by the CCPA and have not done so in the preceding twelve (12) months. However, we encourage you to review our Privacy Policy for information about the sale or sharing of personal information that may occur when you interact with us offline or online in the same manner that a website visitor or other non-candidate may interact with us.  We do not recruit, and have no actual knowledge of having sold or shared the personal information of, applicants under the age of 16.
• Nondiscrimination. You are entitled to exercise the rights described above free from discrimination as prohibited by the CCPA, including exercising such rights without retaliation.   

4.2 How to exercise your California privacy rights

You may submit requests to exercise your rights by completing our online privacy request form available at https://www.cooley.com/legal-notices/privacy-request or by calling us toll-free at +1-866-714-5537. We cannot process your request if you do not provide us with sufficient detail to allow us to understand and respond to it. We may need to verify your identity to process your information/know, access, deletion, and correction requests, and we reserve the right to confirm your current California residency.  We may require identity verification by requiring you to provide information that can help us verify your identity, provide government identification, and/or provide an affidavit under penalty of perjury.  

Your authorized agent may make a request on your behalf upon our verification of the agent’s identity and our receipt of a copy of a valid power of attorney given to your authorized agent pursuant to California Probate Code Sections 4000-4465.  If you have not provided your agent with such a power of attorney, you must provide your agent with written and signed permission to exercise your CCPA rights on your behalf, provide the information we request to verify your identity, and provide us with confirmation that you have given the authorized agent permission to submit the request. 

5. Third parties

This Notice does not address, and we are not responsible for, the practices of any third parties, which have their own rules for how they collect and use your personal information.  Our links to third-party websites or services are not endorsements. 

6. Changes to this Notice

We reserve the right to change this Notice at any time.  The “Effective Date” heading at the top of any future Notice indicates when it was last revised.  Any changes will become effective when we post the revised notice on our Careers Site.

7. Your obligations

Apart from your obligation to provide complete and accurate information in the recruiting process, it is your responsibility to ensure that information you submit does not violate any third party’s rights.