David A. Straite, CIPP/US
David is a certified information privacy professional, a national leader in the recent recognition of property rights in personal data, and a fierce advocate for privacy and investor rights.
David is a certified information privacy professional, a national leader in the recent recognition of property rights in personal data, and a fierce advocate for privacy and investor rights.
David is the nation’s leading voice for the recognition of property rights in personal data, a 10-year effort culminating in the Ninth Circuit’s landmark April 2020 decision in In re: Facebook Internet Tracking Litigation and the Northern District of California’s March 2021 decision in Calhoun v. Google, both of which he argued. David also successfully argued for the extraterritorial application of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in 2019 in In re: Apple Device Performance Litigation, and filed the first-ever data privacy class action under seal to address a dangerous website vulnerability under Court supervision in Rodriguez v. Universal Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co. As M.I.T. Technology Review magazine put it, David is “something of a pioneer” in the field. In September 2022, Law360 named him a Cybersecurity/Privacy “MVP.” He also protects investors in securities, corporate governance, and hedge fund litigation in federal court and in the Delaware Court of Chancery, admitted to practice in both New York and Delaware.
David is a former adjunct professor at Yeshiva University’s Sy Syms School of Business, teaching Business Law and Ethics every fall semester from 2015-2021. He has co-authored Dobbs Ruling Means It’s Time to Rethink Data Collection in Law360 (2022), Google and the Digital Privacy Perfect Storm in E-Commerce Law Reports (UK) (2013), authored Netherlands: Amsterdam Court of Appeal Approves Groundbreaking Global Settlements Under the Dutch Act on the Collective Settlement of Mass Claims, in The International Lawyer’s annual “International Legal Developments in Review” (2009), and was a contributing author for Maher M. Dabbah & K.P.E. Lasok, QC, Merger Control Worldwide (2005). He speaks frequently on topics related to both privacy and investor protection.
David co-chairs the firm’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, which seeks to promote diversity within the firm and the legal profession generally. In 2022, David was also appointed to the LGBTQ Rights Committee of the New York City Bar Association, whose mission is to address “legal and policy issues in legal institutions and in the court system that affect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer individuals.”
Prior to joining the firm, David was a partner with Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer LLP, and helped launch the US offices of London-based Stewarts Law LLP before that, where he was the global head of investor protection litigation. Prior to joining the plaintiffs’ bar, David was an associate with the New York office of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP.
