Cédric Burton LL.M. ’07, the managing partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC’s Brussels office, was selected as one of five cybersecurity and privacy attorneys honored by Law360 as a Rising Star.
Why he’s a data protection attorney:
Burton, who describes himself as “kind of a geek” when it comes to technology, said he began looking into how tech and the law collide while working as an academic researcher after graduating law school. He continued to pursue his interests as a research fellow in privacy and data protection law with posts at the University of Namur in Belgium and at Fordham University’s Center on Law and Information Policy.
“I thought it would be nice to combine law and something I like to do as a hobby,” he said. “I thought it was fascinating.”
Now, Burton said he often works on cutting-edge cases involving new technologies. Mastercard, for example, turned to his team for advice on how to roll out “Identity Check,” a feature allowing users to verify purchases using their fingerprint or by taking a picture of their face, in compliance with EU privacy laws.
“An early mentor told me that privacy law would be the new IP,” Burton said, referring to constantly evolving world of intellectual property law. “And he was right.”
His proudest moment as an attorney:
When Burton joined Wilson Sonsini from what is now Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, the firm had no designated policy team for European cases, he said. Over the past few years, he’s helped built that team from scratch, and today leads a group of 17 attorneys.