Data Privacy & Cybersecurity

Winget, Spadafora & Schwartzberg, LLP offers the entire spectrum of legal services for both providers and consumers of cyber technology products and services, and for insurers that underwrite technology-based risks.

Working closely with our clients to develop enhanced information-management and data-protection capabilities, formulate incident-response plans, craft new insurance products, and, when unavoidable, to prosecute or defend litigation implicating technology concerns. Please click on the following specific areas for details our technology services:

Contract Negotiation and Review

We have negotiated and litigated hundreds of technology contracts. With that experience, and the many lessons learned during litigation and negotiations, we know the contract provisions and revisions that will best protect your business, whether you are drafting contracts, developing the strongest possible templates for your future contracts, or reviewing and negotiating contracts proposed or drafted by others.

Cyber-Insurance Policy Drafting and Claims Investigations

Cyber insurance is the fastest-growing product in the marketplace, and that trend will only intensify over the coming years. Virtually every business needs this coverage, but the risks are difficult to ascertain and the legal precedent is nascent. We help insurers draft cyber-insurance policies that anticipate and address coverage issues in order to maximize clarity and reduce risks of disputes and litigation. We also investigate claims to help our insurer clients take the strongest coverage and defense positions based on policy language and the developing body of cyber-insurance law.

Data Breaches and Incidents

We counsel clients on developing and implementing best practices before, during, and after data breaches and incidents. Before the breach or incident, we help clients Get in Cyber Shape to reduce their cyber risks through a comprehensive legal risk-reduction program focused on: (1) developing or improving policies, incident-response plans, and data-governance plans; (2) developing or improving employee training procedures and techniques; (3) developing or improving table-top exercises; and (4) reporting and advising on the latest legal developments. The underlying objective is to help establish a cyber-security corporate culture.

We also assist insureds and other clients as a “breach coach” to coordinate and quarterback responses to data breaches or incidents. In this role, we help guide and manage the many responsive tasks, including analyzing the nature and scope of the breach or incident, assessing the legal implications and developing and implementing strategies based on those implications, implementing incident-response plans, and communicating internally and externally with the many pertinent constituencies, all while utilizing and maximizing the confidentiality protections of the attorney-client communication privilege where feasible.

Data-Security Protection and Compliance

It can be overwhelming for a business to begin addressing its data-security risks, but the job must be done. Every business possesses legally protected data bearing on its employees, clients and commercial contacts, sometimes unknowingly, and data breaches and incidents will almost inevitably occur at some point, even in the best-run enterprises. In our "brave new world" with its unprecedented reliance on the Internet, computerized information systems and other manifestations of digital technology, businesses must prepare for all contingencies while embracing tangible measures to reduce their exposure to potentially crippling lawsuits, damages, fines, injunctive relief, and regulatory audits.

Winget Spadafora & Schwartzberg, LLP offers a complete menu of products and services that are state-of-the-art, geared to clearly defined objectives, and carefully tailored to your needs, at fees that are highly competitive by any measure of industry standards.

Information Management

Do you know where your data is? Certainly you do to some degree, but probably not entirely. It is likely that your business is accumulating a vast trove of unnecessary and potentially problematic data in various places, including e-mails, draft contracts, sensitive data, and various unneeded files and records. These items raise risks far beyond the increased costs of retention and storage. They may pose substantial legal risks, create additional points of vulnerability for breaches and incidents, and preserve information that may come back to haunt you in litigation as you incur substantial costs and risks reviewing and producing this data to an opponent searching for ammunition. The best defense here, as usual, is a strong offense, and we will help you develop and implement a data-management program that will dispose of data that you do not need, maintain that data that you need to preserve, and ensure that you are not storing data unnecessarily at your expense and to your prospective adversary's benefit.

Litigation Prevention, Prosecution and Defense

We have litigated a vast number of cases in many areas of technology law, including systems implementation, website development, software licensing, intellectual property, outsourcing, and data security. We have been on all sides of these cases - representing vendors, customers, and consultants - and we know the best offenses and defenses to pursue the objective of a successful resolution at the earliest possible juncture. Often that objective is achievable through negotiated settlements. But sometimes that is not feasible, and we have litigated many cases, when necessary, to successful judgments or verdicts in state and federal courts across the country.