Practice Profile:  Jim Pastore is a litigation partner and member of Debevoise’s Cybersecurity & Data Privacy practice and Intellectual Property Litigation Group, based in the New York office. Jim helps clients manage cyber risks, from pre-breach counseling to post-breach response, working closely with top forensic investigators and bridging the gap that sometimes exists between the victims of cyber attacks and law enforcement officials seeking to locate and punish the culprits. While many of his engagements are confidential, the following public matters illustrate the complexity of Jim’s practice.  Jim has assisted a broad range of clients in cybersecurity and data privacy matters, including The Home Depot (in connection with its 2014 data breach); PayPal (in connection with a 2017 data security incident at its subsidiary, TIO Networks); American Express; KKR; and the NBA, among others.

Leadership, Pro Bono and Civic Work: Jim is more than a leading cyber litigator, he also dedicates significant time to a variety of high-impact pro bono cases. Jim recently supervised a team of Debevoise lawyers working with the Bronx Defenders to successfully take on “Mugshot” websites that publish arrest records and then charge fees to remove the publications from the web. Thanks to the Debevoise team’s efforts in marshaling novel legal theories to put pressure effectively on the websites, the client’s information no longer appears on any of these extortionate websites.