My practice focuses on privacy, cybersecurity, and data management. I counsel tech and emerging growth clients on all manner of data-related issues, including privacy compliance, data security, incident response, analytics, advertising, marketing and governance. Given the rapidly evolving privacy legal landscape, pace of technology development and rise of data, it's an exciting space to practice in.
Data is everywhere. Nearly everywhere we go and in everything do, we are generating data, much of it personal – data about our habits, our interests, our health, our activities, our driving, our efficiency, where we go, what we read, who we know and interact with. At the same time, so much of what we now do depends on data – the right data, being available at the right time, in the right place and to the right people. With the increasing importance and reliance on data, effective privacy and data governance and responsible privacy practices are so important.
Data is everything. I consider my practice to be not just about privacy compliance and risk management, but also strategic asset management. In addition to counselling clients on how to collect use, share, manage and secure data in order to comply with laws and regulations and mitigate risks, I try to help clients find ways to manage data as a strategic asset – whether the goal is supporting development of new technology, improving internal processes, predictive analytics and machine learning, cutting edge medical research, or online analytics, marketing and advertising.
Before becoming a lawyer, I earned a Master's in mass communications law from the University of Florida, where I focused my graduate research and thesis on information privacy laws. Before that, I worked on a team responsible privacy compliance at a financial institution. So my background in the privacy space pre-dates my legal practice, and I happily refer to myself as a privacy nerd!