James Pastore

Practice Areas

Jim Pastore is a litigation partner and a member of the firm’s Data Strategy & Security practice and Intellectual Property Litigation Group. The Legal 500 US (2022), which recognizes Mr. Pastore for both his intellectual property and cybersecurity and data privacy work, has described him as a “brilliant litigator” who is “an exceptional attorney” and “smart, patient and flexible in his approach.” Chambers Global (2023) and Chambers USA (2022) which recognize Mr. Pastore as a leading lawyer for Privacy and Data Security, describe him as “fantastic - a very solid and extraordinarily strong lawyer” and “a brilliant cybersecurity attorney.” Sources have said that he is “truly a remarkable attorney in every way” and that he has a “great knowledge of cyber and breach response: the actual nuts and bolts of breach response and managing the process.” Named as a Cybersecurity Trailblazer by The National Law Journal, Mr. Pastore has also been named to Cybersecurity Docket’s “Incident Response 40,” a collection of 40 of the “best and brightest” incident response attorneys in the country, every year since the list’s inception. Benchmark Litigation named Mr. Pastore to its Under 40 Hot List and Law 360 named him a Rising Star for his cybersecurity work.

From 2009 to 2014, he served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Criminal Division of the Southern District of New York, where he was assigned to the Complex Frauds Unit and Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Section. He successfully litigated eight jury trials to verdict and was the lead prosecutor in United States v. Monsegur, a/k/a “Sabu” and Operation Cardshop, both of which were named to the FBI’s top 10 cases of 2012. Mr. Pastore also led Operation Dirty R.A.T., which targeted the creators and users of Blackshades ransom and malware, resulting in the largest ever worldwide law enforcement action against cybercriminals. In connection with the so-called “doomsday virus,” Mr. Pastore obtained a unique order to prevent catastrophic Internet outage.