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Maryland State Bar Association

MSBA Section Email Discussion List Terms of Service

MSBA Section Email Discussion Lists

These terms govern use of MSBA Section Email Discussion Lists (“Discussion List” or “Discussion Lists”). To use any Discussion List, you must be a member of the section and agree to these terms with the Maryland State Bar Association (“MSBA”).

Terms of Service

  1. Important Notice on these Terms of Service

    These terms of service include a number of important provisions that affect your rights and responsibilities, such as the disclaimers in Disclaimers, limits on MSBA’s liability to you in Limits on Liability, your agreement to cover MSBA for damages caused by your misuse of a List in Your Responsibility, and an agreement to arbitrate disputes in Disputes.

  1. Your Permission to Use the Discussion Lists

    Subject to these terms, MSBA gives you permission to use Discussion Lists. Everyone needs to agree to these terms to use the Discussion Lists.

  1. Conditions for Use of a Discussion List

    2. Your permission to use a Discussion List is subject to the following conditions:

    1. You must be at least thirteen years old.

    2. You may no longer use a Discussion List if MSBA contacts you directly to say that you may not.

    3. You must use a Discussion List in accordance with Acceptable Use and Content Standards.

  1. Acceptable Use

    1. You may not break the law using a Discussion List.

    2. You may not use or try to use another’s account on a Discussion List without their specific permission.

    3. You may not buy, sell, or otherwise trade in user names or other unique identifiers on a Discussion List.

    4. You may not send advertisements, chain letters, or other solicitations through a Discussion List, or use a Discussion List to gather addresses or other personal data for commercial mailing lists or databases.

    5. You may not automate access to a Discussion List, or monitor a Discussion List, such as with a web crawler, browser plug-in or add-on, or other computer program that is not a web browser. You may not crawl a Discussion List to index it for a publicly available search engine.

    6. You may not use a Discussion List to send an email to distribution lists, newsgroups, or group mail aliases.

    7. You may not falsely imply that you’re affiliated with or endorsed by MSBA.

    8. You may not remove any marks showing proprietary ownership from materials you download from a Discussion List.

    9. You may not show any part of a Discussion List on other websites with <iframe> or any other web display method.

    10. You may not disable, avoid, or circumvent any security or access restrictions of a Discussion List.

    11. You may not strain the infrastructure of a Discussion List with an unreasonable volume of requests, or requests designed to impose an unreasonable load on information systems underlying a Discussion List.

    12. You may not impersonate others through a Discussion List.

    13. You may not encourage or help anyone in violation of these terms.

  2. Content Standards

    1. You may not submit content to a Discussion List that is illegal, offensive, or otherwise harmful to others. This includes content that is harassing, inappropriate, or abusive.

    2. You may not submit content to a Discussion List that violates the law, infringes anyone’s intellectual property rights, violates anyone’s privacy, or breaches agreements you have with others.

    3. You may not submit content to a Discussion List containing malicious computer code, such as computer viruses or spyware.

    4. You may not submit content to a Discussion List as a mere placeholder, to hold a particular address, user name, or other unique identifier.

    5. You may not use a Discussion List to disclose information that you don’t have the right to disclose, like others’ confidential or personal information.

    6. Every MSBA email discussion list is intended to foster networking and information exchange. MSBA email discussion lists may not be used to reach, or encourage, any agreement (explicit or implicit) that restricts trade, fixes prices, divides markets, or boycotts competitors.

      Prohibited topics include, but are not limited to: 
      1. Pricing: Current or future prices, fees, discounts, or price-related terms
      2. Costs/Margins: Profit margins, cost data, or salary information
      3. Market Allocation: Dividing up customers, territories, or product lines
      4. Boycotts: Agreements to refuse to deal with certain suppliers or customers
      5. Standard Setting: Efforts to standardize industry practices to disadvantage competitors

  3. Enforcement

    1. MSBA may investigate and prosecute violations of these terms to the fullest legal extent. MSBA may notify and cooperate with law enforcement authorities in prosecuting violations of the law and these terms.

    2. MSBA reserves the right to change, redact, and delete content on a Discussion List for any reason. If you believe someone has submitted content to a Discussion List in violation of these terms, contact MSBA immediately.

  1. Your Account

    1. You must be a member of a section to have an account on that section’s list.

    2. If you want an a Discussion List account, you agree to provide MSBA, at a minimum, a valid email address, and to keep that address up-to-date.

    3. You agree to be responsible for all action taken using your account, whether authorized by you or not, until you either close your account or notify MSBA that your account has been compromised. You agree to notify MSBA immediately if you suspect your account has been compromised.

    4. MSBA may restrict, suspend, or close your Discussion List account according to its policy for handling copyright-related takedown requests, or if MSBA reasonably believes that you’ve broken any rule in these terms.

  1. Your Content

    1. Nothing in these terms gives MSBA any ownership rights in intellectual property that you share with a Discussion List, such as your account information, posts, or other content you submit to a Discussion List. Nothing in these terms gives you any ownership rights in MSBA’s intellectual property, either.

    2. Between you and MSBA, you remain solely responsible for content you submit to a Discussion List. You agree not to wrongly imply that content you submit to a Discussion List is sponsored or approved by MSBA. These terms do not obligate MSBA to store, maintain, or provide copies of content you submit, and to change it, according to these terms.

    3. Content you submit to a Discussion List belongs to you, and you decide what permission to give others for it. But at a minimum, you license MSBA to provide content that you submit to a Discussion List to other users of the Discussion List. That special license allows MSBA to copy, publish, and analyze content you submit to a Discussion List.

    4. When content you submit is removed from a Discussion List, whether by you or by MSBA, MSBA’s special license ends when the last copy disappears from MSBA’s backups, caches, and other systems. Other licenses you apply to content you submit, such as Creative Commons licenses, may continue after your content is removed. Those licenses may give others, or MSBA itself, the right to share your content through a Discussion List again.

    5. Others who receive content you submit to a Discussion List may violate the terms on which you license your content. You agree that MSBA will not be liable to you for those violations or their consequences.

  1. Your Responsibility

    2. You agree to indemnify MSBA from legal claims by others related to your breach of these terms, or breach of these terms by others using your account on a Discussion List. Both you and MSBA agree to notify the other side of any legal claims for which you might have to indemnify MSBA as soon as possible. If MSBA fails to notify you of a legal claim promptly, you won’t have to indemnify MSBA for damages that you could have defended against or mitigated with prompt notice. You agree to allow MSBA to control investigation, defense, and settlement of legal claims for which you would have to indemnify MSBA, and to cooperate with those efforts. MSBA agrees not to agree to any settlement that admits fault for you or imposes obligations on you without your prior agreement.

  1. Disclaimers

    1. You accept all risk of using a Discussion List and content on a Discussion List. As far as the law allows, MSBA and its suppliers provide a Discussion List as is, without any warranty whatsoever.

    2. A Discussion List may link to content managed by others. MSBA does not make any warranty about content managed by others.

  2. Limits on Liability

    1. Neither MSBA nor its suppliers will be liable to you for breach-of-contract damages their personnel could not have reasonably foreseen when you agreed to these terms.

    2. As far as the law allows, the total liability to you for claims of any kind that are related to a Discussion List or content on a Discussion List will be limited to $50.

  3. Feedback

    1. MSBA welcomes your feedback and suggestions for the Discussion Lists.

    2. You agree that MSBA will be free to act on feedback and suggestions you provide, and that MSBA won’t have to notify you that your feedback was used, get your permission to use it, or pay you. You agree not to submit feedback or suggestions that you believe might be confidential or proprietary, to you or others.

  4. Termination

    1. Either you or MSBA may end the agreement written out in these terms at any time. When our agreement ends, your permission to use a Discussion List also ends.

    2. The following provisions survive the end of our agreement: Your Content, Feedback, Your Responsibility, Disclaimers, Limits on Liability, and General Terms.

  5. Disputes

    1. Maryland Law will govern any dispute related to these terms or your use of a Discussion List.

    2. You and MSBA agree to seek injunctions related to these terms only in state or federal court in Maryland. Neither you nor MSBA will object to jurisdiction, forum, or venue in those courts.

    3. Other than to seek an injunction or for claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, you and MSBA will resolve any Dispute by binding American Arbitration Association arbitration. Arbitration will follow the AAA’s Commercial Arbitration Rules and Supplementary Procedures for Consumer Related Disputes. Arbitration will happen in Maryland. You will settle any dispute as an individual, and not as part of a class action or other representative proceeding, whether as the plaintiff or a class member. No arbitrator will consolidate any dispute with any other arbitration without MSBA’s permission.

    4. Any arbitration award will include costs of the arbitration, reasonable attorneys’ fees, and reasonable costs for witnesses. You and MSBA may enter arbitration awards in any court with jurisdiction.

  6. General Terms

    1. If a provision of these terms is unenforceable as written, but could be changed to make it enforceable, that provision should be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable. Otherwise, that provision should be removed.

    2. You may not assign your agreement with MSBA. MSBA may assign your agreement to any affiliate of MSBA, any other company that obtains control of MSBA, or any other company that buys assets of MSBA related to a Discussion List. Any attempted assignment against these terms has no legal effect.

    3. Neither the exercise of any right under this Agreement, nor waiver of any breach of this Agreement, waives any other breach of this Agreement.

    4. These terms embody all the terms of agreement between you and MSBA about use of a Discussion List. These terms entirely replace any other agreements about your use of a Discussion List, written or not.

  7. Contact

    1. You may notify MSBA under these terms, and send questions to MSBA, at [email protected].

    2. MSBA may notify you under these terms using the e-mail address you provide for your account on a Discussion List, or by posting a message to the homepage of a Discussion List or your account page.

  8. Changes

    1. MSBA last updated these terms on October 9, 2025, and may update these terms again. MSBA will post all updates to a Discussion List. For updates that contain substantial changes, MSBA agrees to email you, if you’ve created an account and provided a valid e-mail address. MSBA may also announce updates with special messages or alerts on a Discussion List.

    2. Once you get notice of an update to these terms, you must agree to the new terms in order to keep using a Discussion List.