In April 15, a Chicago-area law firm found itself the target of a class action filed by plaintiffs attorney Jay Edelson, who specializes in litigation over privacy violations. The suit remains under seal, with the law firm unidentified publicly, but Edelson says it’s the first of several class actions that he plans to bring against law firms that do not do enough to protect their clients’ data from potential hackers.
The suit came after data security problems at law firms repeatedly made headlines in recent months, from the Panama Papers leak at Mossack Fonseca to the news that a Russian hacker had identified 48 firms for potential attacks, to Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s admission that it had experienced “a limited breach of its IT systems” in 2015.
