ALAN RAUL is the founder of Sidley’s highly ranked global Privacy and Cybersecurity practice and a member of the firm’s top ranked Crisis Management and Strategic Response team. He represents companies on U.S. and international privacy, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and technology issues. Alan advises on global regulatory compliance, data breaches, and crisis management. He also focuses on issues concerning national security, constitutional, and administrative law. Alan handles enforcement, litigation and public policy issues involving the FTC, State Attorneys General, SEC, DOJ, FBI, DHS/CISA, the intelligence community, as well as other federal, state, and international agencies. He advises companies and financial sponsors regarding transactions involving cybersecurity, digital and communication technologies and data-centric business models, and related due diligence. Alan has represented the securities industry trade association (and certain other financial trade associations) regarding the SEC’s cybersecurity rulemakings with respect to publicly traded companies, broker-dealers, and non-public personal financial information held by SEC-registered entities. In a significant matter implicating international data transfers, Alan is representing a major tech company in litigation before European agencies and courts.
Alan also represents a number of leading technology and internet companies whose devices, software, or users have been exploited by state-sponsored threat actors. Such events typically involve extensive coordination with U.S. and international law enforcement, cybersecurity and regulatory agencies, and intelligence services. Cyber crises often involve managing various legal, regulatory, B2B, and consumer risks as well as offering advice regarding a broad range of corporate communications and public messaging. He represented the internet technology company that collaborated successfully with the U.S. and UK governments to defend against and take down the Russian GRU’s malicious Cyclops Blink malware before the Ukraine invasion.
Alan represented the Special Cybersecurity Committee of Yahoo!’s Board of Directors in connection with its independent investigation of the company’s handling of the two largest data breaches ever reported. He represented AT&T, supporting Microsoft, in In the Matter of a Warrant to Search Certain E-mail Account Controlled and Maintained by Microsoft Corporation (contesting extraterritorial access to electronic communications stored in Ireland). And, invoking “the interest of justice,” Judge Amy Berman Jackson appointed Alan to serve as pro bono counsel to represent the privacy interests of jurors in connection with a high-profile criminal litigation, In re: Juror Questionnaires in United States v. Stone; the jurors feared the disclosure of their confidential questionnaires would lead to cyber harassment and worse. In prior government service, Alan represented the White House in connection with congressional and independent counsel investigations of the Iran-Contra episode.
Alan serves as a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School, where he teaches classes on “Digital Governance: Privacy, Artificial Intelligence and Information Technology” and “Cybersecurity Risks, Rules and Responsibilities.” Alan also leads a TechReg Reading Group on the new administration’s emerging policies under the auspices of HLS Beyond and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, where he is an affiliate. He is also an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown.
Alan is Board Chair and President of the Future of Privacy Forum. He is a member of the Technology Litigation Advisory Committee of the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Alan previously served in government as Vice Chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. He also served as General Counsel of the Office of Management and Budget; General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and Associate Counsel to the President.
Alan is ranked Band 1 in Chambers Global’s (USA) (2010–2025) and Chambers USA’s (2008–2024) first tier of “Privacy & Data Security” practitioners and has been named a 2022 “BTI Client Service Super All-Star” in the Privacy and Cybersecurity category. He has also been named as a leading international “Internet and E-Commerce Lawyer” in Who’s Who Legal, and Ethisphere Institute’s “Attorneys Who Matter” in Data Privacy/Security, which recognizes lawyers with the highest commitment to public service, legal community engagement, and academic involvement. The Washingtonian has named Alan one of Washington, D.C.’s “Best Lawyers for Cybersecurity” and also for “First Amendment and Media Law”, and The National Law Journal named him a “Cyber Security Trailblazer.” Alan is a member of the board of the Society for the Rule of Law, which he helped found in 2018 as “Checks and Balances.” The Society is a group of conservative and center-right lawyers dedicated to speaking up in defense of the rule of law regardless of the party or persons in power. In 1990, Alan co-founded the Lawyers Have Heart 10K, 5K & Fun Walk to benefit the American Heart Association. He continues his active involvement with the event.