Ep.18 | What it’s like getting into the privacy profession in 2024 (Guest: Landon McKinney)

Show Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to Privacy Lawls, where I, Donata Stroink-Skillrud, speak with amazing privacy professionals, and we have some laughs along the way as well. So today I’ll be speaking with Landon McKinney about his experiences as a young privacy professional. So Landon is a Certified Information Privacy Professional and a third year JD student at Suffolk University Law School.

He brings a wealth of experience in regulatory compliance and privacy law, having worked as a legal and regulatory compliance specialist at Bandwidth Inc, a SaaS telecommunications company, and supported privacy related matters as a former commercial litigation paralegal at Perkins Coie. Additionally, Landon worked as a law clerk with Mullen Coughlin’s cyber incident response team and as a corporate legal intern at Vertex Pharmaceuticals.

So Landon, thank you so much for joining me today. Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Donna. I’m very happy to be here today. Thank you. Awesome. So, when did you first become interested [00:01:00] in working in privacy? So my interest in privacy was kind of a, a long journey, I will say. But it really took off when I worked as a commercial litigation paralegal at Perkins Coie in their D.

C. office. In this role, it kind of exposed me into a lot of the intricacies of privacy law and so where I was able to assist clients with the compliance of ECPA the Communications Act, as well as the GDPR. That’s awesome. So when you were a kid, your parents didn’t read your diary? No, thank goodness they did not, but they were, they were convinced I was, would be an attorney one day.

And so that played into the part of me trying to fight that. So I was hell bent on being something else. Nice. Yeah. I think for a lot of privacy lawyers, we kind of end up stumbling into this by accident. But we have had, you know, privacy experiences when we were younger. Like for me, I was Part of the target data breach.

And that was kind of my first experience with this and, you know, then kind [00:02:00] of moving through law school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And you know, then it just kind of fell into my lap. I just stumbled into it. So. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And I, I did try to, to, to fight the whole going to law school thing.

But after working as a paralegal, I was like, you know, this is just kind of, I feel like destined. So that’s what brought me. So in terms of you know, working in privacy, what interests you the most about working in this field? So, I think one of the one of my biggest interests would probably be one of the biggest pain points that most privacy professionals and attorneys deal with, and I think that is the current U.

S. privacy regime. I think I’ve been really attracted to the fact that it is such a patchwork and that it is continuously growing and and kind of working itself out. So because of the way that the state and federal laws have changed so much over the course of time even from when I was working in privacy as a paralegal this change in progression, I will say you know, kind of keeps me on my [00:03:00] toes and nimble just to see, you know, what’s going to be the next emergence of privacy laws in the U.

S. Yeah, there’s a lot to keep track of. I think, you know, in terms of the laws themselves, then you have the bills and you have the enforcement actions, then you have different entities talking about different things and you have new and emerging technologies. There’s just so much to keep up with. And I think it’s, It’s a struggle, like you said, but it’s also the fun part of it in, in the sense that there’s something new every day.

Right, exactly. Even when, like in, for instance, like AI, I remember when, you know, folks started talking more and more about the privacy implications of AI. And for me, I was, I, although I am very into privacy, I’m not necessarily very into it. technology savvy. So I was, you know, trying to, to stay clear of AI, but at this point, I think it’s inevitable.

And so now it’s, it’s more about embracing it, learning more about it and, and figuring out those privacy [00:04:00] implications. Yeah. I’m trying to avoid those pitfalls that some lawyers have gotten caught up in. You know, submitting briefs with fake A. I. hallucinated cases and all right. Exactly. And I think the thing is, is, you know, even in law schools, I think a lot of school administrations are trying to figure out, you know, how do we you know, roll in the use of A.

I. Into studies and then also, you know, How do you do it ethically and how do you do it in a way that students still learn but can also make use of these technologies? Yeah, AI can definitely make you lazy in the sense that, you know, you input a prompt and then it tells you what, you know, you hopefully need to know.

And you don’t critically think about that information that’s presented to you or how you get that information without the AI or even without the internet, you know. Oh, absolutely. And I think it, it can be a useful tool, but also I think you know, you can’t let it think for yourself. Yep, [00:05:00] absolutely. So, you know, we worked together for quite a bit now at the American Bar Association’s e privacy committee.

We’ve been newsletter co editors for a couple years now. And through working with law students for multiple years, I think you’re the most hardworking and impressive law student that I’ve met so far. And I want to talk to you about some of your experiences, because I think there’s some great lessons there for.

Other law students who may be interested in privacy or even other attorneys as well. And right now you’re in your third year at Suffolk law school. Does your law school offer any courses in privacy at all? Yes. So currently Suffolk does. So I go to Suffolk university law school and Suffolk offers one privacy course.

And it touches on the various requirements for protecting privacy for PII and providing security of data and business activities. But it also kind of focuses on healthcare life sciences and biotechnology. Technology. So of course it touches on HIPAA and the [00:06:00] GDPR, and then it also explores emerging state laws.

And then in addition to this privacy course, they also offer several courses that run sort of adjacent to privacy. So this next semester I’ll be taking a race ethical AI and cyber, cyber civil rights class, which provides students an opportunity to learn more about emerging technologies such as AI.

And the impact that they can have on privacy, racial, racial bias, and civil liberties. That’s really interesting. When I was in law school, there were no courses in this. And then I actually looked this up. So back in the day you had like LLM options, which I think you still have now. And we had, you know, tax law or government policy or business law.

And it’s interesting because. You know, preparing for this podcast, I went back to my law school’s website and there’s no LLM concentration or anything like that in privacy, which I think is a [00:07:00] bit missed because I think so many students are interested in this. And so many lawyers are interested in this as well and I wasn’t able to find any privacy courses either and i’m like I should reach out to them Be like, hey, you should think about this but I don’t want to create more work for for myself, right?

Do you think that like have you seen other law schools offer courses in privacy? Or other students who are interested in these types of courses? Yeah, and I I think the interest is there from students and from what i’ve seen other law schools are starting to follow this trend of incorporating more privacy courses in their curriculum.

But I do think that we have a long, we have a long way to go because privacy is, I think, traditionally not treated as like a standalone concentration or specialty in most law schools, which I think it could be. So, for instance, the IPP released the report on privacy curriculum in U. S. law schools, which highlighted 30 of the 43 responding [00:08:00] schools reported offering dedicated privacy courses, but the report also noted that only 3 of the respondents reported to having advanced or secondary courses for privacy.

So while I do think that law schools are making a lot of progress in offering more classes that do deal with privacy, I think there is an opportunity to be able to provide students with more advanced courses that would one, give them practical experience, but also to, you know, expose them to the intricacies of what it would be like to work in privacy.

Yeah, you know, back in the day we had in my law school, we had a business clinic and we had a veterans clinic. I think it would be really interesting to see a privacy clinic. Right. Exactly. I think there is a need there, especially, you know I would, I would say even here in Boston where I am, you know, that we are, there’s a lot of healthcare or biotech startups.

And I think that there is a need for these types of [00:09:00] clinics in this area. And I wouldn’t, would not even argue that it would be probably even outside of Boston as well. You know, these sort of clinics can serve those clients. And I think there’ll be a plethora of work. Yeah, I think it would be. You know, it’d be interesting to see courses and privacy, but also thinking from like a teacher’s perspective, it’d probably be hard to create one just because of how quickly things are changing, you know once you create your course curriculum before the semester starts, you have to add new laws, the new stuff in there, right?

Yeah, exactly. I think it would be a pain point, but. You know, I think students would be interested and be able to be a little bit more flexible as, you know, for me, I think it makes it more exciting you know, while professors might have a difficult time, you know, printing out a syllabus that’s probably neat and nice I think it’ll keep students on their toes and honestly, like, more interested in knowing, well, what is today’s new development?

I think so too. You know, [00:10:00] back in the day in property law, you had cases from 1850 or whatever, and it’s like, how much of this stuff really still happens today? You know, a couple of days ago you had this enforcement action and here’s what it means. I think it’d be a lot more interesting, especially since it applies to everyone, right?

Not all of us have a pool or a house, but all of us, you know, You know, are using the internet, right? Exactly. And I think, yeah, like you said, like, you know, in property, we learn, you know, the case that what, what actually is possession you know, with the Fox case, but for privacy, I do think that we do have that sort of history you know, as, as we slowly have learned, you know, what is privacy?

But as you know, like, now, I think these new developments can constantly keep students engaged. Absolutely. So speaking of people being engaged so in your law school, you founded the Data Privacy and Cybersecurity Law Association. So, can you tell us a bit more about why you founded this and how you [00:11:00] did this?

I’ve never seen anything like that in a law school. I think it’s really cool. Yeah, no, of course. So I will say when I first came to Suffolk I had kind of made up my mind what area of law I wanted to focus on. And so when I got there, I had noticed that there were other students sort of shared this interest and sentiment and wanting to know more about privacy and maybe exploring careers there.

And so after having some conversations with these colleagues we decided that, you know, why not create a student bar association? Organization that would allow us to be able to, to have events and network with professionals in the privacy sphere here in Boston, or even outside of Boston. And so in order to do that, all we, all we did was, you know, we, we reached out to students in our classes, the classes before us and just ask, you know, Do you have an interest in privacy?

If so, you know, will you sign our form so that we can be a an [00:12:00] official SBA organization? And once that was finalized we were able to kind of get up and going. And so this past well, this past couple of weeks ago, actually we had an event. I think we had over 130 attendees. So, you know, I think the, the biggest thing was there is interest there.

It was just about for us creating a platform and a space for students to be able to have those deeper conversations around the emergent field of law. So you, Determine that there’s interest in your school for this. You had people sign this paper and then what? Like, do you just submit it to the law school?

Was there any like pushback from them at all? Or it’s like, no, this is great. No, I mean, to be quite frank. So once we submitted the forms to the student bar association at Suffolk, you know, they granted our probational status as a official organization. And then we were at our first orientation fair the following [00:13:00] semester, and our dean of our law school actually came up and said, you know, This is fantastic.

You know, we are actually loving to see this and Dean Perlman is a huge character in the privacy space and AI space. And so to kind of get his blessing was really, I would say gratifying for our, our club, but also kind of a boost for kind of where we wanted to go next. I think that’s a really big boost for your law school as well because if I’m a student, I’m looking into law schools and I see, Hey, this law school has this association.

Wow. You know, I want to go into this field that they’re already having something going here and there’s already interests. There’s already events. I mean, that’s, that’s a huge plus. Right, exactly. And I think long term my vision dream wise would be to be able to kind of develop this association and in the future be able to have the school have a concentration or, or some sort of [00:14:00] adjacent to that form of where you can kind of tack on a privacy concentration for your graduation.

Yeah, that totally makes sense. So regarding the association. What does it do? Can anybody join or is it just students? Can teachers join? How does that work? Right. Yeah. And, and so membership is not necessarily restricted. We, we aim to serve as a, serve as a platform for law students to learn more about employment opportunities in the privacy field and especially including JD advantage roles.

And So, ideally, the association hosts a variety of in person and virtual events to sort of explore the current trends and developments in the privacy field, as well as cyber security and then kind of touches on the intersections of other areas, such as A. I. And so by doing that, what we do is usually feature expert speakers, alumni.

We do panel [00:15:00] discussions as well as workshops. And so the, like I said, the association is open to all Suffolk law students, but we’re always looking for privacy professionals to serve as speakers. And we’re also launching this year, our mentorship program. And so we’re looking for. professionals that may be willing to serve as mentors to students.

That’s really cool. I really like that. I think mentorship is really important. I didn’t have much of that in law school because my law school just wasn’t set up that way. And through working with law students, I have found it to be very helpful both for the lawyer and the student as well. So yeah, if we have any privacy pros listening who want to serve as mentors or want to speak, make sure to reach out to Landon here.

Yes, thank you. So in addition to your law school, you also obtained the Certified Information Privacy Professional designation. Can you tell us a bit more about why you decided to obtain the [00:16:00] certification and what this process looks like? Yes, of course. So, I obtained my CIP E certification last October.

When I decided to do so I based my decision solely on the idea that the certification was sort of my, necessary step in making sure that my knowledge and skills reflect that I’m interested in privacy, but also dedicated to the privacy field. And so I ended up landing on the SIP E because I do have a keen interest in the legal market there.

And I feel as though the GDPR really encapsulates the end goal of future U. S. privacy regimes. So it sort of felt like a really good foundation to start at. It also, the reason I did not wait until after law school, which some folks are like, wow, You did it during like during your semester and I’m like, Yes, I did.

But I decided to do that because I was still sort of in the school study mindset. [00:17:00] And so I just ended up treating it as an additional like final or exam. For school, and so I studied for about 3 weeks using the book and as well as a couple of other resources that I found through sort of scrounging around online.

And I’m happy to also share if anyone is interested or. So if anybody needs more information about what those external resources were, I’m happy to share offline about that as well. Yeah, I think the SIP designation, nine, I would say like nine out of ten, if not ten out of ten privacy jobs require that or strongly encourage having that.

Right. So it’s become. Pretty much a requirement for anybody that wants to have a privacy job. And I, I really like the fact that you did it during law school. I did it after because I didn’t know that I wanted to be a privacy attorney during school. And it was kind of difficult to get back into the studying mode.

And you know, making the flashcards and watching the videos and reading the books [00:18:00] and stuff. It was definitely kind of a shift from working as a practicing lawyer to having to study again, you know No, exactly. It was and I think you know, I had to really Think out of the box as far as studying for this one, too Because you know while you are busy and have other things going on Like you do have to fit that in, into your schedule.

And so one other thing that I did was while I was working out, I would listen to a podcast that was solely just repeating the different parts of the GDPR. And I actually ended up finding that very useful. It helped me sort of memorize and also kind of pack that in my brain. Man, that sounds terrible.

Yeah. Yeah. It was certainly, yeah, no, it was not fun per se, but it helped. Yeah. It’s, that’s a whole new level of dedication. I mean, I can’t even, I can’t listen to any podcasts while working out because my brain just like, I don’t know, I can’t listen to it, [00:19:00] but that’s awesome that you did that. Thank you.

So apart from all that, you also have some real life experience too. Working as a law clerk, legal intern, compliance specialist. Can you tell us a bit more about these jobs and what experience you got from them? Yeah, of course. So I have been fortunate to be able to serve in several different roles that allowed me to explore different areas of the legal field particularly in privacy and compliance.

So currently I am a law clerk at Mullin Coghlan and I serve on their incident response team as a law clerk, just helping with ongoing incidents and connecting them. Legal research and as we spoke, you know, the laws are constantly changing, so do the breach notification laws. And so that keeps me on my toes.

And so I help with the attorneys on their analysis for the different regulations and case precedents to support, you know, their legal strategies and compliance efforts for the clients. Before [00:20:00] this I did serve as a legal intern at Sophia Genetics. And there I supported their commercial contracts team.

So I was Involved in managing their contracts end to end for all of their U. S. And also any international contracts that came in. And so I did touch on the different privacy regulations, like the GDPR and all of that sort of stuff. While in the midst of, you know, pushing through all of those other contracts.

So and I did touch a lot on HIPAA which was actually a great learning experience for me because I had not. necessarily worked in that space prior. So it was really interesting. And then prior to law school I did work as a legal and regulatory compliance specialist at bandwidth in Raleigh, North Carolina, and they are a telecommunications SAS company.

So I, I worked sort of ensuring that the company adhered to the data privacy standards and other regulatory requirements for their jurisdictions. And I gained a lot of practical [00:21:00] experience with regulatory compliance, especially with in the telecommunication space, which is very intricate and also sort of changing as well.

So I was able to gain a lot of practical experience. That’s really good that you have that. When I was in school, I was working for a temp agency and they put me with a law firm one day. And I’ve never worked with lawyers or law firms before then, and I was like, you know, collating and proofreading documents or whatever.

And it was such a different experience from any other job that I had, which is, you know, you have to be extremely detail oriented. Everything has to be correct. You know, everything has to be proper, you know, and I was like, wow, these people have like real standards about their work. And that was my first experience, but it’s cool that you have that experience already.

So that, you know, when you start working at a law firm after graduation, you’re not like completely green and have no [00:22:00] idea how lawyers work. You know, the, the, what they do and how they do it is, is important, but how lawyers work, I think is really important to getting along with your team as well. Yeah, and I will say, you know, working prior to law school gave me a lot of insight on how attorneys work and, you know, what they prefer.

And, you know, it was really helpful to see because, you know, Now, as I am, you know, working as an intern, I know the, the, what they’re looking for, and at least a good foundation of like where to start. Yeah. Lawyers are very, very specific about what we do want and what we don’t want. And yeah, that is, is great.

And. I think a lot of law students want to get this kind of experience as well, but don’t exactly know how. Can you share a little bit about how you went about getting these jobs and internships? Yeah, and I, I certainly understand that there is a lot of frustration. Trust me, I felt [00:23:00] it because I think in the data privacy space, It’s kind of difficult to find these sort of roles.

And so what I would recommend for students to do is, is really, you know, make use of all of your resources to find these sort of roles that you may be looking for. So, for me, I. And I jokingly tell my friends, you know, I’m addicted to LinkedIn. I love it. I spend probably multiple hours a day on it, just kind of looking at different jobs on their job board.

But because of that, I have found, you know, different roles that I’ve been able to apply for. Like for instance, the role at Mull and Coghlan that I currently have, you know, I didn’t expect to move to Philly over the summer. But I did because I thought it was a really good opportunity. And. You know, law clerk incident response, law clerk positions don’t pop up every day.

So for me, it was, it was about the opportunity, but because I was kind of keeping an eye on LinkedIn and, and watching that, I was able [00:24:00] to see that. Another thing that I would also highly recommend students do is connect with other privacy professionals that share jobs on their LinkedIn. I have been able to do that and I know a lot of folks off the top of my head that I know frequently post or share jobs that come through and I think by doing that you know, you can be the first to see, Oh, well, so and so has shared this job at X company.

Let me apply now and be one of the first applicants. Yeah, you kind of have to take the initiative and go after it. I did find that in my case as well, where I had to like go in and apply and follow up and all this other stuff, handing these out, like, nobody’s going to stop you on the street and be like, Hey, would you like to be an intern?

Right. Exactly. Exactly. You, you do have to, there is a lot of you do have to pursue it in a way that is obviously diligent. But also. respectful. Cause I know as, as attorneys I, [00:25:00] I’m very cognizant of the fact that I know every attorney that I have connected with in the privacy space has a million other things going on.

And I just try to be very cognizant of the fact that their job is half their life. And so I think that’s also something students need to consider is just like, you know, if someone doesn’t follow up, give them some time. And then also have, give them some grace as well. Yeah, absolutely. So in addition to all these other things, you know, we’ve been working at the ABA for a while together like we talked about earlier.

So how did the ABA help you kind of level up your skills and experience as well? Absolutely. So volunteering with the ABA has certainly helped me with working with different legal experts in different backgrounds. And it’s also kind of helped me gain of perspective on the involved, like evolving intersection of technology, law, ethics.

And it’s in a way helped me level up on deepening my knowledge of the latest developments [00:26:00] in cybersecurity, AI, and privacy law. So one of the biggest things that I get from this is being able to collaborate with professionals like you who are obviously experts, but also very passionate about these issues and so by doing so, it’s kind of helped me be able to learn how to think more critically and stay proactive about the industry changes.

And obviously by helping you with the newsletter it’s improved my ability to research and, and keep sort of abreast on the different things that have been occurring and happening in the privacy space. Absolutely. And I think those leadership positions look good on your resume too, you know When I was in school, my resume just, you know, I went to law school and before that I’ve worked at a Kmart, you know what I mean?

So I think that that helps employers know that you’re interested in this field, you’re invested in it, you’re meeting people, you know, people and yeah, the ABA has no shortage [00:27:00] of passionate people for better or worse. Sometimes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think it, I think it is, you know, and I.

I admit it does look good on a resume. But I think it’s also, you know, I have found a little space for me to be able to kind of get more involved. And like the newsletter, for instance, I love doing that. You know, it’s, it’s my sort of creative moment because I’ve now learned how to use Canva. And so now I’ve sort of mastered that and learned how to do that.

And so, you know, I’m able to change up and, you know, sharing more information to, to the privacy subcommittee is, is sort of like, Oh, this is actually really fun to do and knowing that i’m being able to share things with others Absolutely, and people love it too. You know, we always get messages back like thank you so much for this.

Absolutely. Love it So right. Yeah, it’s we’re one of the few committees that does that and it’s nice to know that people appreciate it and I myself appreciate it too, you know, I read it after you send it to me. I’m like, [00:28:00] okay Let’s read through this. Let’s see. What’s up It’s just great to kind of Keep up to date with what people are doing.

And there’s so many people doing so many cool things and it’s Absolutely. And it just serves as a really good one stop shop to kind of pick up on every little latest development at least on a broader scale. So it’s very nice. Absolutely. So you’re a 3L right now and you’re going to be graduating soon.

You’re looking for a job. Yes. Can you tell us a bit more about what kind of job you’re looking for? Yeah, of course. So I will be graduating this next May. And so I’m starting to gradually start the job search process in hopes that I can secure an offer before I, I graduate in May. So I’m currently looking for a position or role in the privacy space supporting in house or even in law firm experience.

So for me, I’m also open to privacy adjacent positions. I would just really like the opportunity to be able to, to provide guidance and [00:29:00] counsel to clients or businesses or business groups. So that’s sort of what I’m kind of looking in right now. Thank you. Awesome. So if people have any job openings or want to chat with you where can they reach you?

Yes, of course. So if anyone is interested in any of the content or other items that I’ve covered in the podcast, I encourage you to reach out especially law students that may want more information on breaking into the privacy space. And shamelessly, if anyone may have a position or role that you do need to fill and you may feel that I’m a good fit, you can reach out to me my, you can reach me through LinkedIn at Landon McKinney, or you can also find my email at landon.

mckinney@suffolk.edu. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today about your experiences as a privacy professional and, and what you’re up to. Well, thank you. No, I thank you so much for having me. Awesome. And then to our listeners make sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you don’t [00:30:00] miss our next episode.