Our global cybersecurity practice expanded significantly in early 2024, with the hire of five dedicated cyber partners as well as counsel and associate teams across the UK, U.S. and APAC to supplement A&O Shearman’s existing cyber expertise which was mainly located across Europe.

We are a standalone team that brings a specific skillset to solving cyber issues, including legal risk management, incident response, regulatory compliance and handling investigations and follow-on litigation. We work closely with teams around the firm, including data privacy, regulatory and AI.

How we came to be cyber specialists is interesting. Our backgrounds include working for the police, advising on insurance disputes, crisis management and data privacy. The cyber legal landscape has evolved significantly over the last ten years and we’re fortunate to say we’ve had a front row seat.

Working with clients in a crisis, and often on one of the worst days in their careers, means that the client relationships we build are strong ones. They’re also usually with senior members of the business, including the C-suite and board members.

Since our practice expanded earlier this year, we’ve developed our legal product offering to address cyber risk management, integrating with existing team members around the world and, most importantly, taking the offering to clients