Where Legal Insight Meets Technical Depth in Tech, Privacy & Cyber Risk

Clients turn to Ice Miller for cybersecurity, privacy, data, and AI risk matters because we understand both the legal exposure and operational realities organizations face. Ice Miller’s Tech, Privacy & Cyber Risk practice is built by practitioners who come from technology, engineering, IT, and law enforcement — not just law.

Our team includes former IT professionals, systems engineers, developers, a former Cybersecurity Advisor and State Coordinator for the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and a former FBI special agent and general counsel — advising clients where technology, risk, and business decisions intersect.

We call it a "lawyer+" model: the ability to sit credibly in a room with engineers, CISOs, and board members alike — and translate between them. The result is technically fluent, operationally grounded guidance delivered to clients across industries and risk profiles.

This multidisciplinary perspective allows us to bring practical, technically fluent insight to every engagement — whether structuring complex technology transactions, responding to cybersecurity incidents, or guiding organizations through evolving legal and regulatory compliance requirements. The result is actionable guidance grounded in real world operational experience, delivered to clients across sectors and industries.

Capabilities Built for Real-World Tech, Privacy & Cyber Risk

Incident Response & Breach Management

Incident response playbooks matter — but they are not enough. Our incident response approach is built on embedding with technical teams in real time, anticipating how legal, regulatory, and enforcement dynamics will unfold so that response decisions are deliberate and intentional from the first hour.

Our incident response counsel includes:

• Real time incident coordination alongside internal security teams, forensic investigators, managed security service providers (MSSPs), and law enforcement — bridging technical findings and legal obligations as events develop
• Regulatory analysis and breach notification strategy informed by how investigations actually progress, not theoretical timelines
• Tabletop exercises grounded in lessons learned from actual incidents we have managed — scenario design that reflects real threat actor behavior, operational pressure, and cross functional decision points

We advise organizations through high‑stakes incident response, including:

• Ransomware, malware, and cyber extortion events;
• Data breaches involving personal, financial, health, or proprietary information;
• Regulatory notifications and investigations at the federal and state level;
• Coordination with law enforcement, regulators, forensic vendors, and insurers; and
• Litigation defense following cyber incidents.

Clients trust us in high pressure moments because we have been in the room before — managing complexity calmly, communicating clearly across technical and executive audiences, and driving decisions that account for legal, operational, and reputational risk simultaneously.

Technology Transactions

We advise clients ranging from SaaS providers, cloud platforms, and technology companies to purchasers of technology solutions on commercial transactions where security and data risk are not afterthoughts — they are deal terms.

Our technology transactions work includes:

• Master services agreements, SaaS and cloud contracts, data processing agreements (DPAs), and enterprise licensing structured around how systems are actually deployed, integrated, and operated
• Allocation of cyber, data privacy, uptime, and security risk across customer and vendor agreements — ensuring commitments reflect real shared responsibility models, not boilerplate
• Negotiation of security representations, audit rights, incident notification provisions, and liability frameworks aligned with technical architectures and operational realities

Cybersecurity & Privacy Due Diligence in M&A

Acquiring a company means acquiring its cyber risk, regulatory exposure, and data liabilities — whether they appear on a balance sheet or not. Too often, cybersecurity and privacy due diligence in M&A is treated as a compliance checklist exercise, surfacing only what the target chooses to disclose.

Ice Miller takes a fundamentally different approach – evaluating target environments for inherited risk across access controls, data handling practices, regulatory exposure, security posture, and historical events.

Our team's backgrounds in systems engineering, IT operations, and federal cybersecurity enforcement allow us to ask the questions that traditional legal diligence misses – and to recognize when the answers do not add up. That technical fluency enables us to draw out deep‑seated risks that can materially affect valuation, integration timelines, and post‑close exposure.

Buy-Side Diligence

• Evaluate inherited cybersecurity risk beyond standard disclosure
• Assess access controls, data flows, security architecture, and incident history
• Identify gaps between policy documentation and operational reality

Sell-Side Preparation

Strong cybersecurity and privacy posture is no longer just a defensive measure — it is a competitive differentiator and a value driver in the M&A market.

We counsel sell‑side clients well in advance of a potential transaction, helping them identify and remediate the same cybersecurity, privacy, and data governance risks that a sophisticated acquirer's diligence team will scrutinize:

• Internal risk assessments — close regulatory and compliance gaps
• Data governance — document data flows and third‑party relationships
• Incident response — validate capabilities and operational readiness
• Security controls — ensure they are defensible, not just documented

By addressing these issues proactively, sellers avoid last‑minute surprises that erode valuation, delay closing, or generate unfavorable indemnification demands — and build lasting benefits that extend well beyond the deal: stronger security programs, tighter vendor oversight, and a more resilient operating environment.

Privacy and Cybersecurity Governance & Compliance

The privacy regulatory landscape continues to evolve rapidly across the United States and globally. Ice Millers helps organizations design and implement privacy and cybersecurity governance programs that address legal requirements while supporting business strategy, innovation, and growth.

Effective cybersecurity and privacy programs start with understanding enterprise risk and accountability — not just checking regulatory boxes. We advise clients on assessments, compliance initiatives, and governance structures using recognized frameworks and industry standards.

With privacy and cybersecurity compliance still being relatively new, the dearth of case law requires a practical approach — one that puts clients in a compliant, and legally defensible posture, while recognizing that flexibility and adaptability to the evolving regulatory landscape is essential.

Our privacy and cybersecurity governance and compliance work includes:

• U.S. state privacy laws, including BIPA, CCPA and CPRA, and comprehensive state privacy statutes
• GDPR compliance and international data transfers
• Sector specific privacy and data security laws, including HIPAA, GLBA, COPPA, FERPA and PPRA 
• Data governance, data mapping, and record retention strategies
• Vendor, supply‑chain, and third‑party data risk
• Employee and consumer data collection, use, and disclosure
• Privacy policies, consent notices, and internal compliance frameworks

We focus on operationalizing compliance — helping clients translate legal requirements into durable processes across business units, vendors, and technology systems.

Artificial Intelligence & Emerging Technology Risk

Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and automated decision‑making tools introduce new categories of legal, regulatory, and reputational risk that move faster than the regulatory frameworks attempting to govern them. Ice Miller advises organizations on the responsible development, deployment, and governance of AI technologies — bringing the same technical fluency that defines our practice to a space where understanding how models are trained, validated, and operationalized is inseparable from managing the legal risk they create.

Our governance and risk work spans the full AI lifecycle:

• AI governance & acceptable use policies— Operational policies governing employee and enterprise use of generative AI and large language models (LLMS), including acceptable use boundaries, intellectual property protections, confidentiality safeguards, and output validation requirements
• Data infrastructure & governance — Counsel on the construction of enterprise data lakes with governance frameworks that address data lineage, quality, permissible use, bias risk, and regulatory constraints from the ground up 
• Vendor due diligence — AI‑focused assessments evaluating training data provenance, algorithmic transparency, bias testing and mitigation, data retention, and subprocessor risk 
• Regulatory navigation — Advise on the evolving regulatory landscape, including the EU AI Act, NIST AI Risk Management Framework, state‑level AI legislation, and sector‑specific guidance and helping clients build governance structures that are durable enough to withstand regulatory change without paralyzing innovation

In a space where many firms offer theoretical guidance, Ice Miller's technical backgrounds allow us to engage directly with data science, engineering, and product teams, pressure‑test vendor claims, and translate emerging compliance obligations into governance frameworks that are practical, auditable, and aligned with how AI systems actually operate in production environments.

Cyber Insurance & Risk Transfer

We regularly represent policyholders in cyber and technology‑related insurance matters, including:

• Coverage analysis and policy placement counseling
• Cyber insurance gap analyses to align coverage with your evolving risk profile
• Claims management and recovery following cyber incidents
• Disputes involving data breaches, wire fraud, and cyber extortion

Our work helps clients maximize insurance recovery while aligning coverage with their evolving risk profile.