In-House Counsel Crisis Management: Data Breach and Cybersecurity Incident Response

This CLE course will help in-house counsel handle the legal and business challenges they face as crisis managers when responding to data breaches and cybersecurity incidents. The panel will cover best practices for incident response planning, reducing liability, ensuring business continuity, protecting the company’s reputation in the face of public scrutiny, and preparing strategic communications during and after incident response.

Data breaches and cybersecurity incidents regularly push companies into the spotlight, requiring in-house counsel to respond quickly to legal, operational, regulatory, reputational, and litigation risks. Without a solid plan and effective implementation, disruptions, negative publicity, lawsuits, and regulatory investigations can seriously threaten a company’s reputation.

Because most businesses will experience a security incident or data breach—either directly or through a third party—businesses should err on the side of caution. In-house counsel should assume such an incident will occur and prepare for that likelihood well in advance.

Before an incident, in-house counsel should identify and train key response team members and create an incident response plan that can be triggered at the outset of detection and outlines how your team will respond in different scenarios. During the incident or breach, in-house counsel should help identify legal risks and liabilities to take steps to limit exposure. In the aftermath, in-house counsel should assess the likelihood of regulatory actions and lawsuits and work with internal and external teams on a resolution strategy, including remediation, regulator engagement, settlement, or litigation. Throughout planning and response, in-house counsel should ensure that communications with key stakeholders, such as regulators, customers, employees and executives, affected parties take into consideration legal and regulatory expectations and thoughtfully reflect and protect the business’s broader interests.

Listen as our expert panel will examine the role of in-house counsel in responding to data breaches and cybersecurity incidents and will present strategies to address the key legal and business challenges they face before, during, and after these high-stakes events.