Our third episode, “Cyber Breach Response”, features guest speakers Angeline Chen and Bodo Meseke.  I asked our guests if “a student or someone more junior would like to do what you do or get into your area, what advice would you give them?”  Angie said:

“You should do what you’re interested in.  If you’re interested in cybersecurity, and you’re a lawyer, as an example, what you need to do is, one, get through law school, learn your trade.  Going to law school itself does not tell you how to practice law.  But if you’re interested in cybersecurity, or in things from a technological standpoint, you can pull the thread through some of the conversations that we had earlier, in that you need to learn how to at least talk to people who are IT experts, who are doing this as their trade and their profession.  You need to know some of the basics.  You need to know when someone says, know your information systems architecture, what that means.  When someone talks about a hot backup, you need to know what that means.  When someone starts talking about areas and issues that are specific to cybersecurity or cyber defense, you need to understand what ransomware is, you need to know what a business email compromise attack might be, you need to know what phishing and spear phishing and social engineering is.  You also need to be technologically savvy.  That doesn’t mean you have to be the first to adopt gadgets in the latest effort and stuff like that.  But you need to be following what’s happening in this area as it pertains to data management, data protection, and cyber.  I have had a very, very odd career path.  And so I kind of would like to think that I fell into this area by accident, but it really wasn’t because looking back over time, my interest in emergent technology as an example, was there from the very beginning when I started in litigation.  So figure out what is your actual passion, or your areas of interest, and then go and talk to people.  If not mentors, find people that are willing to sit down and talk to you about their career paths and try to get a sense of whether or not what they’re doing really is something that would be something you’d be willing and happy to wake up every day and actually practice by way of a legal career or profession.”

Interested in hearing more?  Check out Episode 3 here (available August 31, 2021).