GW Law’s National Security, Cybersecurity, & Foreign Relations Law Program and the National Security Law Association (NSLA) hosted a fireside chat with Jane Horvath and Danielle Hernandez, JD ’19, to celebrate Women’s History Month. This year’s event—Women Leading the Way in Cybersecurity Law—offered GW Law students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to hear an accomplished alumna, early in her cybersecurity law career, moderate a conversation with a leader whose work in the field has been truly groundbreaking.
After graduating from GW Law, Hernandez served as Assistant General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Defense and is currently Associate Corporate Counsel at Amazon Web Services. Horvath is currently a Partner and Co-Chair of both the Tech and Innovation Industry Group and Privacy, Cybersecurity & Data Innovation Practice Group at Gibson Dunn. She previously served as Apple's Chief Privacy Officer, Google's Global Privacy Counsel, and was the first-ever Chief Privacy Counsel and Civil Liberties Officer at the U.S. Department of Justice. She also serves as a Special Advocate on the Data Protection Review Court (DPRC) and is a board member of the Future of Privacy Forum.
Drawing from her unique experiences in these positions, Horvath shared her perspective about what it means to be a lawyer at the forefront of the rapidly evolving privacy and technology sector. In her conversation with Hernandez, Horvath made connections to early developments of privacy law and policy with the issues facing today’s lawyers and technology companies. She also emphasized the intersections of private sector interests with public sector national security concerns in shaping legal approaches to privacy and cybersecurity law. Horvath also spoke about the regulatory landscape both in and outside the US and the challenges in keeping up with the evolving technology when advising clients in the sector. The conversation closed out with a discussion on artificial intelligence and the future of its regulation and related challenges.
During the event’s Q&A portion, Horvath answered questions about balancing consumer privacy with access to markets for companies doing cross-border business, advice for law students in dealing with emerging technologies, and safeguarding privacy against generative AI and disinformation on the web. Horvath reiterated the complex legal and ethical landscape of emerging technologies, cybersecurity and privacy law, with data and its importance at the heart of these issues.
The event gave students a compelling window into how the field has evolved and where it is heading next, through insights from a leading voice and a standout alumna building an impressive career in cybersecurity and privacy law.