David Kessler is the Global Head of the firm's E-Discovery and Information Governance practice and the Head of the US Privacy practice. He is a thought leader on discovery, data privacy, records management and cyber security.
Cybersecurity: David focuses his practice in helping clients respond to cybersecurity incidents and in particular complying with their obligations to provide notice to individual data subjects and regulators. David has been cyber response counsel in some of the largest and most high-profile cyber incidents in the last five years and has particularly specialized in helping law firms and other legal services companies respond to cyber security incidents.
Data Privacy: David counsels clients on a range of data privacy matters focusing on compliance and cross border data transfers. David has provided advice regarding the Stored Communication Act (SCA), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). He also provides advice to multinational clients regarding compliance with EU data protection and privacy laws including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), where he works closely with his colleagues in the EU.
David is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/E) through the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).
E-Discovery: David acts as global discovery counsel for technology, finance, pharmaceutical and manufacturing companies where he helps them address litigation readiness, cross border discovery complications and acts as special discovery counsel in complex litigations. David focuses not only on tactical e-discovery issues in particular cases, but advises clients regarding strategic e-discovery portfolio management and data governance. For example, David has helped clients with emergency ex parte preservations orders; negotiations with opposing counsel regarding disaster recovery data; establishing that opponents had fabricated e-mails; and developed litigation readiness protocols.
Information Governance: As part of his information governance practice, David has advised clients on where and how to store and manage data globally as well as how to integrate record retention, data security and e-discovery into the fabric of their IT infrastructure. Beyond helping clients stand up information governance programs with policies and record retention schedules, David counsels clients on mobile device management, ephemeral data, disaster recovery and business continuity systems and the cloud. He also has represented clients in defensible data disposition projects and examining the contours of their own dark data.