Terms of Service

These Terms of Service are an agreement between you and Tingen Law, PLLC. They explain the rules for using our website at https://tingen.law and its subdomains and pages, including the client portal at tingen.law/portal. Please read them carefully.

Tingen Law, PLLC is an immigration law firm at 1503 Santa Rosa Road, Suite 120, Richmond, VA 23229. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your personal information and is part of these Terms.

1. Introduction and Definitions

1.1 Words Used in These Terms

"Tingen Law," "the firm," "we," "us," and "our" mean Tingen Law, PLLC.
"You" and "your" mean any person or business that uses the website or portal.
"Website" means tingen.law and all of its subdomains.
"Portal" means the client portal at tingen.law/portal and any future version of it.
"Engagement agreement" means the written agreement you sign when you hire us for legal services.
"Client" means a person who has signed an engagement agreement with us.
"Active client" means a person who has a signed engagement agreement with us and an open matter.

1.2 Agreeing to These Terms

By using the website, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you create a portal account, you accept these Terms when you create the account and again when we make a material change (see Section 10). If you do not agree, please do not use the website or portal.

1.3 Your Engagement Agreement Comes First

These Terms cover your use of the website and portal. They do not create an attorney-client relationship. If you are a client, your engagement agreement governs our legal work for you. If these Terms and your engagement agreement conflict, the engagement agreement controls.

2. What Changed in This Version

Here is a plain-language summary of what is new in this version:

The Terms now cover only tingen.law, its subdomains, and its pages, including the client portal.
We added a section on how to close your portal account.
We updated our payment processors to Stripe and LawPay and removed Confido Legal, PayPal, and Klarna.
We updated our communication tools to Mailjet, Twilio, and Aircall, removed Brevo and WhatsApp, and disclosed that calls may be recorded.
We added a section about USCIS case status information shown in our systems.
We rewrote the section on changes to these Terms. For important changes, we now post a summary, email it to portal users and active clients, and ask portal users to accept the new version at their next login. Continued use no longer counts as consent.
We rewrote the liability, warranty, and indemnification sections in plain English. They now make clear that your engagement agreement controls our relationship with you as a client.
We capped our liability for website and portal claims at the greater of $250 or the fees you paid us in the prior three months. The cap does not apply to our legal services or to our confidentiality duties.
We added a governing law and disputes section. Disputes about the website, the portal, or these Terms must be brought in the courts in Richmond or Henrico County, Virginia.
We moved the details on cookies to the Privacy Policy.
We updated our fax number and removed an old phone number.

3. User Accounts and the Client Portal

3.1 Creating an Account

When you create a portal account, you must give accurate, complete, and truthful information and keep it up to date. Your login details are personal to you. Do not share them with anyone. You are responsible for all activity under your account.

3.2 What the Portal Does

The portal lets you see your cases, read and send case messages, view invoices and your trust account balance, manage payment plans, and share documents securely with the firm. We may add, change, or remove portal features over time.

3.3 Your Responsibilities

You agree to:

Use the portal only for lawful purposes connected to your matter
Keep your password private and choose one that is hard to guess
Tell us right away if you think someone else has used your account or if you notice a security problem
Upload only documents and information that you have the right to share with us

3.4 Security

We use administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect the portal and the information in it. The Privacy Policy describes them. No method of sending or storing data online is completely secure, and you accept that risk when you use the portal.

3.5 Suspension or Termination by Us

We may suspend or end your portal access if you violate these Terms, if we see a security risk, or if your matter with us ends. If we do, you may lose access to content in the portal. Ending portal access does not end our duties to you as a client, and you can still get your file from us as the Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct require.

3.6 Closing Your Account

You can close your portal account at any time. To do so, use the contact form at https://tingen.law/contactus or call us at (804) 477-1720. We will close your account within 30 days.

Closing your account does not delete your client file. We keep the file under the retention rules in our Privacy Policy. If you also want your data deleted, tell us, and we will follow the deletion process in the Privacy Policy.

4. Payments

4.1 Payment Processors

We use Stripe and LawPay to process online payments. When you pay online, you authorize Tingen Law and the processor to charge your chosen payment method. We do not store your full card number. Stripe and LawPay follow the PCI DSS payment security standard.

4.2 Recurring Payments and Payment Plans

If you agree to a payment plan or subscription, you agree to the schedule and amounts shown when you sign up. Payments are charged automatically to your chosen payment method on each scheduled date. Please keep your payment information current. If a payment fails, we may contact you to update it.

4.3 Trust Deposits

Some payments are deposits into our client trust account. We hold and account for those funds as Virginia Rule of Professional Conduct 1.15 requires.

4.4 Taxes

Any taxes or fees that apply to a payment are shown at checkout. You are responsible for paying any taxes the law requires.

4.5 Processing Fees

Our payment processors may charge processing fees. Those fees may be added to your payment or deducted before the funds reach us. Any fee you are asked to pay will be shown before you complete the payment.

5. Using the Website

5.1 Not Legal Advice

The information on our website is general information, not legal advice. Reading it or sending us a message does not make you our client. You become a client only when you sign an engagement agreement with us. Immigration law changes often and depends on your facts, so please talk to a lawyer before acting on anything you read here.

5.2 Online Forms and the Eligibility Quiz

Our website has forms for questions, consultation requests, and an eligibility quiz. Sending us a form does not create an attorney-client relationship. We treat what you send as confidential, but the relationship is formed only when you sign an engagement agreement. The quiz result is a first look based on your answers and is not legal advice.

5.3 The Portal Is a Convenience

The portal is one way to work with us. It does not replace direct communication with your legal team. If something is urgent, call us.

5.4 USCIS Case Status Information

Our systems check the status of USCIS filings using the official USCIS Case Status API. Today, our staff sees this status in our case management system. It is not yet displayed in the client portal, though we may add it there in the future.

Any status we do share with you comes from USCIS. It may lag behind USCIS's own records or be incomplete, and USCIS does not return a status for some privacy-protected case types.

Case status information is not legal advice. Tingen Law is not affiliated with USCIS or any other government agency.

5.5 Prohibited Activities

You may not:

Use the website or portal for any illegal purpose
Submit false or misleading information
Try to access another person's account or data
Interfere with the website or portal, or try to get around its security
Copy, scrape, or reuse our content except as Section 8 allows

6. Communications From Us

When you give us your contact information, you agree that we may contact you about your inquiry or your case. This includes case updates, appointment reminders, document requests, and service notices. We send marketing messages only with your consent.

6.2 Opting Out

You can opt out of marketing emails by clicking the unsubscribe link in any message or by contacting us. You can opt out of text messages by replying STOP (see Section 7). While we represent you, we may still need to send you messages about your case, such as a deadline notice.

6.3 Tools We Use

We use Mailjet to send email, Twilio to send text messages, and Aircall to run our phone system. Each of these companies acts as our service provider and may use your information only to deliver its service to us. Our Privacy Policy has more detail.

6.4 Call Recording

Calls with the firm may be recorded and stored. We record calls to keep your file accurate, to check the quality of our service, and to train our staff. Recordings are treated as confidential client information and are stored by Aircall as our service provider.

7.1 Opt-In

By giving us your phone number and checking the opt-in box on our forms, you give express consent to receive text messages from Tingen Law, PLLC. We use these messages for appointment reminders, case updates, document requests, and customer support.

7.2 Message Frequency and Rates

Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply depending on your mobile carrier and plan.

7.3 Opt-Out and Help

Reply STOP to any message to stop receiving texts. Reply HELP for help, or call us at (804) 477-1720.

Consenting to text messages or marketing emails is not a condition of receiving legal services from Tingen Law, PLLC.

We respect your privacy. Your mobile phone number and your SMS consent will not be shared, sold, rented, or disclosed to third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes.

8. Intellectual Property

8.1 Ownership

The content on our website, including text, graphics, logos, videos, and software, belongs to Tingen Law, PLLC or to the people who license it to us. It is protected by copyright and other laws.

8.2 Your License to Use the Website

We give you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the website and portal for your own personal or business purposes related to our services. We can revoke this license if you break these Terms.

8.3 Trademarks

The Tingen Law name and logo, and any other marks on the website, belong to Tingen Law or to their owners. You may not use them without our written permission.

8.4 Your Documents and Information

You keep ownership of the documents and information you give us. You give us permission to store, copy, convert, translate, and use them as needed to provide legal services to you and to run the firm. We do this as described in the Privacy Policy.

8.5 Links to Other Websites

Our website may link to other websites. We provide these links for convenience. We do not control those sites and are not responsible for their content or their privacy practices.

9. Privacy and Cookies

Our Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and how to ask us to delete it. It is part of these Terms.

In short: we do not sell your personal information, and we use only essential cookies. We share your information only with the service providers, agencies, and courts named in the Privacy Policy, or with your consent, or when the law requires it.

10. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we make a material change, we will:

Post a plain-language "What changed" summary at the top of these Terms
Email the summary to every portal account holder and every active client
Ask portal users to actively accept the new version at their next login before continuing

For active clients who do not use the portal, the emailed summary is the notice. Continued use of the website alone never counts as consent to a material change. For minor changes, such as fixing typos, updating contact details, or changing formatting, we simply post the updated Terms with a new date.

Until a portal user accepts a material change, the version they most recently accepted keeps applying to their use of the website and portal. If you are not a portal user or an active client, the version posted on the website at the time of your visit applies to that visit.

New features we add to the website or portal are covered by these Terms unless we tell you otherwise.

11. Limitation of Liability

11.1 What This Section Covers

This section limits our responsibility for problems with the website and portal themselves. It does not limit our responsibility for the legal services we provide to clients. Our duties to clients are set by your engagement agreement and the Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct, and nothing in these Terms reduces them.

11.2 Website and Portal Issues

To the extent Virginia law allows, we are not liable for losses caused by:

Inaccurate or incomplete information that you or someone else provided
Relying on general information on the website instead of legal advice
Outages, delays, or errors in the website, the portal, or a third-party service such as a payment processor or mobile carrier
Events outside our reasonable control

This cap applies only to claims about the website or portal. It does not apply to claims about our legal services. It also does not apply to any claim that we breached our duty of confidentiality to you. Nor does it apply to a claim that we failed to reasonably safeguard your information under the Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct.

For any remaining website or portal claim, our total liability to you is capped. The cap is the greater of $250 or the amount you paid us in fees during the three months before the event that caused the claim. Some laws do not allow this kind of limit, and it does not apply where the law forbids it.

12. Mobile Carrier Disclaimer

Text messages depend on mobile carriers. We are not responsible for delays, failures, or errors in sending or receiving text messages caused by a carrier, including network outages, poor signal, or service disruptions. If you do not receive an expected message about your case, please call us.

13. Your Promises to Us and Our Warranty Disclaimer

13.1 Your Promises

You promise that your use of the website follows the law and these Terms, and that the information you give us is accurate, complete, and lawful to share.

13.2 Website Provided "As Is"

We provide the website and portal "as is" and "as available." To the extent Virginia law allows, we make no warranty that they will be error-free, secure, or always available. This disclaimer applies to the website and portal only. It does not apply to our legal services, which are governed by your engagement agreement and the Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct.

14. Age Requirement

14.1 Adults Only

Our website and services are intended for people who are at least 18 years old. By using the website or sending us information, you confirm that you are 18 or older and able to enter into a binding agreement.

14.2 Minors

We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18 through our website. If we learn that a minor has sent us information without a parent's or guardian's consent, we will delete it. We do represent minors in immigration matters. In those cases, a parent or guardian provides the minor's information and acts on the minor's behalf.

15. Indemnification

This section applies if a claim against Tingen Law is caused by your misuse of the website or portal. It also applies if the claim is caused by your violation of these Terms or of someone else's rights. In that case, you agree to cover our losses, including reasonable attorneys' fees.

We may choose to control the defense of any such claim, and you agree to cooperate with us. This section does not apply to claims about the legal services we provide to you as a client.

16. Governing Law and Disputes

16.1 Virginia Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules.

16.2 Where Disputes Are Heard

Any dispute about the website, the portal, or these Terms must be brought only in the state or federal courts located in Richmond, Virginia, or Henrico County, Virginia. You agree to the jurisdiction of those courts. Your engagement agreement governs any dispute about our legal services.

16.3 Talk to Us First

If you have a problem with the website or with us, please contact us first. Most issues can be solved with a conversation. This section does not limit any right you have under your engagement agreement or your right to contact the Virginia State Bar.

17. Other Terms

If a court finds part of these Terms unenforceable, the rest still applies.
These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and any engagement agreement you sign are the full agreement between you and us about the website and portal.
If we do not enforce a part of these Terms right away, we can still enforce it later.
If the firm is sold, merged, or closes, we will notify you in advance. The Privacy Policy explains your options for your information.

18. Notices and Contact

18.1 Notices to Us

Send any official notice under these Terms through the contact form at https://tingen.law/contactus or by mail to Tingen Law, PLLC, 1503 Santa Rosa Road, Suite 120, Richmond, VA 23229.

18.2 Contact Us

For questions about these Terms or our Privacy Policy:

Contact form: https://tingen.law/contactus
Phone: (804) 477-1720
Fax: (804) 597-0097