The City Bar Discussion Forums are a platform to discuss items relevant to professional development and career enhancement. The forums are an online community of lawyers, consultants, professional development directors, scholars, and other professionals interested in furthering the careers of those in the legal industry. The City Bar Discussion Forums are a project of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (City Bar).The terms and conditions of this User Agreement govern your use of the City Bar Discussion Forums site (the "Site"). You should carefully read this User Agreement before you use the Site. By using the Site, you agree to be bound by this User Agreement. The City Bar reserves the right to make changes to this User Agreement at any time without prior notice. The updated version of the agreement will be available at www.nycbar.org. Your continued use of the Site after a change has been made to the User Agreement is taken as your agreement to be bound by the User Agreement as updated.

1. User Conduct

You agree not to post, email or otherwise make available, on or through this Site, content that:
a. is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, slanderous, obscene or sexually explicit, defamatory, libelous, invasive of anyone's privacy or violative of a privacy or publicity right, or is harmful to minors;
b. discriminates against, degrades or intimidates an individual or group on the basis of sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, race, color, religion, ethnicity, country of origin, age, disability, marital status, citizenship, genetic predisposition, carrier status or other characteristic protected by law;
c. falsely states or portrays your identity or impersonates the identity of another, or manipulates identifiers that would disguise the origin of any content posted on or transmitted through the Site;
d. is false, deceptive, misleading or deceitful;
e. infringes on any copyright, trademark or other intellectual property right, or consists of content that you do not have a right to post, transmit or otherwise make available;
f. advertises illegal services or the sale of goods or services not permitted by law;
g. consists of "Spam", "Junk Mail" or any other potentially objectionable form of unsolicited communication;
h. is a corrupted file or contains software viruses, worms, Trojan horses or any other computer code, files or programs that are designed to, or have the effect of interrupting, destroying or limiting the functionality of any computer software or hardware or any communications equipment;
i. is not relevant to the subject matter of the Site; or
j. is a solicitation for funds or a commercial activity.

You agree not to undertake any activity which disrupts or diminishes the quality of the Site, or to seek unauthorized access to the computer systems of the City Bar. You also agree not to use any automated tool or software to try to collect or distribute information from or to the Site or users of the Site or to break into any of the servers of the Site. You understand that you are legally responsible for the content you post on the Site, including, without limitation, honoring all copyright, trademark and other proprietary rights; privacy rights, and the right not to be defamed or slandered. You warrant that, in posting content on the Site, you are not infringing on any third party's copyright or other proprietary rights and that you have secured all the necessary permissions to post or distribute content on the Site. You agree not to use the Site to advertise goods or services.

The City Bar shall have the right, but not the obligation, to monitor all content on the Site and to remove or refuse acceptance or publication of any content that is not permitted under this section, or any other content that in the City Bar’s sole discretion is not appropriate for the Site.

2. Restricted Portions of the Site

Parts of the Site may be restricted to certain users. The City Bar reserves the right to select such users in its sole discretion. To gain access to, and use, certain portions of the Site, you may need to provide certain personal information and establish a user name and password. Personal information so provided by a user pursuant to this section will not be provided to third parties, unless required by law or court order, without the consent of the user. The City Bar may utilize and make available the information so provided in an aggregated manner or in such other manner that the information is not identifiable as pertaining to a particular user. You agree that you will maintain your password as confidential, and that you will be responsible for any activity that occurs as a result of your enabling another person or entity to use your password. If your password is lost or stolen, or you become aware of any other unauthorized use of your password or of a breach of security of the Site, you are responsible for notifying the City Bar Discussion Forums Administrator of the problem. Users may terminate their registration at any time and for any reason. The City Bar will not be responsible for any loss or damages of any kind resulting from any unauthorized use of breach of security of the Site, or resulting from your failure to comply with any provision of this section.

3. Content and Services

All the content on, transmitted through or linked from the Site is the responsibility of the person or entity who posted or transmitted the content, or who linked to and from the Site or who operates such links. The content on the Site may be completely independent of the City Bar. You understand that you may be exposed to content that violates section 1. above, and that you may not rely on the accuracy or honesty of any material on the Site. The City Bar shall not be liable for any content that is deleted or otherwise not displayed on, or transmitted through, the Site. You agree to absorb all the risks resulting from the use of the content, services or links to and from the Site.

The City Bar may utilize email addresses of users to send emails providing information regarding the Site and related information.

The City Bar reserves the right to make changes without notice in the services, content and format of the Site and the practices and procedures governing the use of the Site.
If a user posts personal information online that is accessible to the public or to other users, the user may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return. The City Bar has no responsibility with regard to a user's receipt of such messages or the content thereof.

4. Intellectual Property Rights

The City Bar retains its copyright in the layout and graphics of the Site and in the Site’s its content uploaded. By posting content on the Site you grant the City Bar a non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free license to use, post, edit, publish, translate and distribute that content, and authorize users of the Site to view, copy, download, print and transmit materials you post or link to on the Site for the purposes of fair use, provided that all copyright notices that appear on the work that you are posting or using must appear on all copies of the work. The City Bar grants the same rights to users as are provided in the previous sentence.

Pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, 17 USC Section 512(c)(2), the City Bar’s ' designated agent for notice of alleged copyright infringement is:

General Counsel’s Office
The New York City Bar
42 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
United States of America

5. Links to Third Party Sites

The City Bar is not liable for any content accessible from the Site through links provided by a user or sponsor to other sites, makes no representation or warranty with regard to those sites and take no responsibility for the content of those sites. Your use of the linked sites is subject to the terms and conditions of those sites.

6. Confidentiality
Any postings on, or transmissions through, the Site regarding a client or a legal matter may be governed by professional ethical rules and laws governing the practice of law. The City Bar takes no responsibility with regard to maintaining the confidentiality of any posting on, or transmission through, the Site.

7. Representations and Warranties

YOUR USE OF THE SITE AND ITS SERVICES AND CONTENT AND OF LINKS TO OTHER SITES AND YOUR USE OF THE CONTENT ON THOSE LINKED SITES, IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. THE CITY BAR MAKES NO REPRESENTATION REGARDING, AND IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR, THE QUALITY, ACCURACY, SECURITY OR RELIABILITY OF THE SITE, ITS CONTENT OR LINKS TO THE SITE, ANY ERRORS OR OMISSIONS REGARDING THE CONTENT OF THE SITE, OR THE SITE BEING FREE OF VIRUSES, COMPUTER CODE, FILES OR PROGRAMS WHICH MAY INTERRUPT, DESTROY OR LIMIT THE FUNCTIONALITY OF ANY COMPUTER SOFTWARE OR HARDWARE OR ANY COMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT.

THE CITY BAR EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THE SITE AND ITS CONTENTS AND SERVICES, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED AND INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY WITH REGARD TO ANY DEFECT IN, OR DISSATISFACTION WITH, THE SITE, ITS CONTENTS OR ITS SERVICES IS TO STOP USING THE SITE OR SERVICES.

8. Exclusions and Limit of Liability

YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT THE CITY BAR SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, GOOD WILL, DATA, OR ANY OTHER LOSS, EVEN IF THE CITY BAR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH LOSS, RESULTING FROM (a) THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SITE OR SERVICES, (b) ANY LINK PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH SUCH SERVICES, (c) YOUR RELIANCE ON ANY OF THE SERVICES, (d) THE INTERRUPTION, SUSPENSION OR TERMINATION OF ANY SERVICES, (e) THE TIMELINESS, DELETION, MISDELIVERY OR FAILURE TO POST, STORE OR TRANSMIT ANY CONTENT, OR (f) ANY MATTER OTHERWISE RELATED TO YOUR USE OF THE SITE, ITS CONTENTS, SERVICES OR LINKS.

9. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless the City Bar and its officers, directors, members, employees, agents, vendors, successors and assigns from any claim or demand, or any losses, liabilities and expenses, including reasonable attorneys' fees and court and other litigation costs, due to or arising out of your use of the Site or the content and links you post or transmit, your violation of this User Agreement, or your violation of the rights of another that is related to your use of the Site.

10. Access to Site and Termination

You agree that City Bar, in its sole discretion and for any reason, has the right, but not the obligation, to delete or deactivate your password or account, block your email or suspend or terminate your access to the Site, and that the City Bar shall not be liable for taking any action under this section. The City Bar reserves the right, without notice, to refuse access to the Site or Site services to anyone at any time, and to terminate this Site or any and all of its services at any time.

11. General Terms

This User Agreement shall be interpreted and enforced in accordance with the laws of the State of New York, and users of the Site agree to submit to the personal and exclusive jurisdiction of the federal and state courts located in New York County with regard to any claim or cause of action arising out of or relating to this Agreement or this Site. This User Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between the user and the City Bar, superseding any prior agreements between the parties. The failure of the City Bar to exercise or enforce rights under this Agreement does not constitute a waiver of those rights. Regardless of any law to the contrary, you agree that any claim or cause or action arising out of or related to this Agreement or this Site must be filed within one year after such claim or cause of action arose or be forever barred. If any provision of this Agreement is found invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions of the Agreement shall to continue to be valid and enforceable.

The Association of the Bar of the City of New York. All Rights Reserved.