Chair’s Message

November 2022
Sheri Porath Rockwell, Sidley Austin LLP – Chair, CLA Privacy Law Section

It’s been a busy few months in California privacy, to say the least!  This jam-packed edition of our e-News will bring you current on new developments and get you excited for the year ahead, which promises to be a busy one. 

We have belated good news to share on two fronts: 

First, we are excited to announce the addition of new members of our Executive Committee: Taylor Bloom (San Diego/Orange County), Mike Hellbusch (Orange County), Jennifer Mitchell (Los Angeles) and last but not least, Andrew Scott (SF Bay Area) (whose name you may recognize as the powerhouse behind pulling this newsletter together each month).  We are thrilled to have such experienced and capable privacy professionals on our Executive Committee.  Plus, they are all a pleasure to hang out with (on and off of Zoom). 

Second, our Privacy Law Section received an award for the Most Innovative Section of the California Lawyers Association!  This is thanks in no small measure to the incredible work and dedication of our Executive Committee members as well as those of you who are involved in our committee work.  We were presented with the award in September, at the Annual Meeting of the California Lawyers Association, which was a joint affair with the California Judicial Association.  We were in very good company, as Supreme Court Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye received an award at the same event, just before ours. 

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The Privacy Law Section will not, however, rest on its laurels!  We are hard at work developing programming to help you keep up with the privacy and cybersecurity issues of the day. 

Our big undertaking in the year ahead will be our inaugural Annual Privacy Law Summit, which will be held on February 9-10, 2023 on the UCLA campus.  (Shout out for SoCal privacy!!).  We have incredible speakers lined up, including Michael Murray, UK ICO Regulatory Strategy Service Head.  Yes, he’s coming from England to help us all understand California’s Age Appropriate Design Code Act. We will have lots of other interesting speakers and accommodations available for attendees in the beautiful UCLA Luskin Conference Center. 

In other news, our CPRA Rulemaking Working Group has been hard at work analyzing comments from the latest round of CPRA regulations and is gearing up for the new tranches of regulations addressing automated decisionmaking, profiling, impact assessments and (hopefully) employment and B2B data.  If you are an experienced privacy practitioner in either area that would like to get involved in commenting on proposed regulations in these areas, please email cpra-rule-making@googlegroups.com . This is really an “advanced” privacy undertaking that requires experience with operationalizing or advising on privacy law implementation. 

We have many opportunities for engagement and leadership, for people at every stage of their privacy or cybersecurity journey.  Involvement in the section is a great way to get plugged into the California privacy community.  If you are interested in learning more about our various committees, including our Ad Tech and Cybersecurity Committees, please reach out to us at privacy@calawyers.org.  A list of our committees is here https://calawyers.org/section/privacy-law/committees/.

Don’t forget to re-up as a member of the Privacy Law Section for the year ahead so we can continue to provide you with newsletters like these and access to all of our exciting work.  If you work in a larger law firm or other organization where your bar dues are paid without your involvement, you may need to flag for the accounting department that you want to be a Privacy Law section member.

Wishing all of you a Happy Thanksgiving! 

Sheri Porath Rockwell
Chair, Privacy Law Section