Daily Journal Selects Natasha Kohne as a “Top Cyber Lawyer”

(San Francisco) – Akin Gump cybersecurity, privacy and data protection practice co-head Natasha Kohne has been selected as one of Daily Journal’s Top Cyber Lawyers 2020.

Based on accomplishments from the past two years, Top Cyber Lawyers features California attorneys at the “cutting edge of cybersecurity law.” Daily Journal notes that attorneys such as Ms. Kohne “help to thwart cyber criminals by advising companies on best practices and on navigating legal and regulatory mandates on privacy and data security, and deal with the aftermath when clients’ systems are breached.”

In the profile of Ms. Kohne published today, Daily Journal outlines her practice, which, in addition to cyber issues, comprises investigations, litigation, regulatory and compliance matters for clients that include global financial services, sovereign wealth and government-backed vehicles, and private equity and hedge fund managers in sectors that include retail, transportation, health, energy and technology.

The profile notes that she opened the firm’s Abu Dhabi office and remains co-managing partner of that office. Of her work in Abu Dhabi, she says, “It’s one of the fastest-growing emerging economies…Before the pandemic I traveled there once a month…and then, March 2020 rolled around.” While the firm’s Dubai office is open again, the Abu Dhabi office awaits reopening, though, she notes, “Even so, things are going smoothly over there.”

In California, Ms. Kohne took the lead in the firm’s lobbying to revise the 2018 California Consumer Privacy Act, the profile writes, and she worked with legislators and activists in Sacramento. Now that the law has been enacted, she is providing insights and analysis to clients. Regarding Proposition 24, the Consumer Personal Information Law and Agency Initiative (popularly known as the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020), approved with 56 percent of the vote in November, she characterized it as “the only statute of its kind in the nation, with an additional tier of consumer privacy protections” and said, “There’s a two-year runway, with implementation set for Jan. 1, 2023. Companies here are now thinking like a lot of their counterparts in Europe,” in reference to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

The profile adds that she advises international investment management firms and other cross-border clients on The Privacy Shield, a framework arrangement between the U.S. and the EU as well as Switzerland and the U.S. to enable transmission of personal data among the parties.

Ms. Kohne added that she believes that Congress may be getting closer to its stated intention to pass a federal privacy bill: “I work on that with our firm’s public law and policy practice in D.C. Regulation is needed, but you can’t move the pendulum too far too fast.”

Founded in 1945, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a leading international law firm with more than 900 lawyers in offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

# # #