Stacey A. Shadden

In its newly released 2022 edition, The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 47 McGrath North attorneys in the full range of specialty practice areas key to supporting businesses of all sizes across a broad range of industries.  Of these partners recognized based on peer-review surveys, 11 were named “Lawyer of the Year.” This honor is awarded to only one attorney with the highest overall peer-feedback for a specific practice area and geographic location.  

McGrath North is sponsoring and conducting our 14th Annual Seminar for Accounting Professionals in Omaha, Nebraska.  

Beginning in 2002, California passed the first data breach notification law in the United States, and since then, the remaining 49 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands have enacted data breach notification legislation. Following the passage of these laws, many jurisdictions have modified and updated their regulatory framework. Recently, Connecticut’s governor signed both HB 5310 (An Act Concerning Data Privacy Breaches) and HB 6607 (An Act Incentivizing the Adoption of Cybersecurity Standards for Businesses) into law.  

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) became effective on January 1, 2020, and the California Office of the Attorney General (OAG) has been bringing enforcement actions against companies since July 1, 2020. With a year under our belt, we’ve gained important insight into the types of violations the OAG is focusing on. Notably, in July 2021, the OAG published an exemplary list of CCPA enforcement actions that the office has taken over the last year. This list helps provide further insight into the types of violations that the OAG has investigated, sent notices for, and seen remedied over the last year.  

This month’s episode of Privacy is Power focuses on the importance of employee privacy and security training. Reports show that as many as 90% of breaches start from social engineering or phishing attacks that an organization’s technical security solutions can’t protect against. Training an organization’s workforce who handle sensitive data will have an immediate impact on an organization’s level of data security, and not properly training the workforce can be costly and detrimental. Don’t trust that employees know how to properly protect data or implement proper procedure, reach out to McGrath North’s Privacy and Cybersecurity team today to create a tailored training guide to efficiently ensure employees know proper protocol.   

2021 is already heating up with privacy and security regulatory changes. Congress is getting closer to federal legislation, regulatory agencies are finding ways to get involved and the first national cyber director in history was sworn in by the White House. Check out this month’s episode of Privacy is Power to get up to speed on the top 5 newsworthy data privacy and security topics to help your organization implement updates and prepare for future changes in the world of data privacy and security.