Practice Areas
Alan Raul is Senior Counsel and founder of Sidley Austin LLP’s 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. Alan also focuses on issues concerning national security, constitutional, and administrative law. He handles enforcement, litigation and public policy issues involving the FTC, State Attorneys General, SEC, DOJ, FBI, DHS/CISA, the intelligence community, and their respective international counterparts. Alan advises companies and financial sponsors regarding transactions involving cybersecurity, AI, international data transfers, digital and communication technologies and data-centric business models, and related due diligence.
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.” He is also Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown.
Alan is Chair and President of the governing Board of Directors 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. During his service on PCLOB, the Board addressed the Terrorist Surveillance Program authorized by the President. 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. In his prior government service, Alan represented the White House in connection with congressional and independent counsel investigations of the Iran-Contra episode. He maintains a national security clearance. Alan received his J.D. from Yale Law School, M.P.A. from Harvard Kennedy School, and A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard College.
In addition to his professional activities, Alan also serves on the Board and as Secretary 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 defending democracy and the rule of law regardless of the party or persons in power. In 1990, Alan co-founded the “Lawyers Have Heart” 10K run and walk, to benefit the American Heart Association. He continues his active involvement with the event.
In his law practice, Alan has represented 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 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. Alan represented AT&T in support of 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.
Alan is ranked in Chambers’ first tier of privacy and cybersecurity practitioners and has been named a BTI Super All-Star for client service in the privacy and cybersecurity field. Alan 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.”
