The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/411912
PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGA ZINE OF ILTA 34 ON A FAMILY EASTER TRIP, BRIAN HENGESBAUGH PULLED INTO A MCDONALD'S PARKING lot in Kentucky, hoping to guarantee a cellphone connection. The call was urgent: A legal client had been hacked. While the lawyer yakked for 90 minutes, his increasingly frustrated wife, Mary- Louise, considered driving off with their six-month-old baby and letting whatshisname hitch a ride. "I didn't know about the risk of flight until the call was over," Mr. Hengesbaugh confesses. That was five years ago. Thankfully, these days, the Chicago-based Baker & McKenzie LLP partner has a deeper bench at work. Mr. Hengesbaugh, 45, specializes in privacy and data security issues, and law firms like his are moving to capitalize on the fallout of two game changers: Target Corp.'s credit card fiasco and Edward Snowden's leak of government surveillance files. Opportunities for lawyers suddenly seem almost limitless, amid the rise of social media and state-sponsored hacking; the perceived risks of cloud computing; and the promised "Internet of Things" connecting vehicles, appliances and other machines to the Web. "None of us thought it would take on the threat that it has," says Bill Cook, the Chicago- based deputy chair of law firm McGuireWoods LLP's data privacy and security team, who in the 1980s headed the U.S. attorney's computer crime task force here. Generally, lawyers say that the work covers a wide spectrum, from drafting disclosure policies to litigating when breaches occur to rendering advice on selling customer info to third CASE STUDIES Lawyers Are the New Foot Soldiers in the Privacy Wars Reprinted with permission, Crain's Chicago Business September 15, 2014. © Crain Communications, Inc. About the Author Steven R. Strahler is a freelance reporter for Crain's Chicago Business. He can be contacted at sstrahler@crain.com.