Longtime FTC consumer protection pro jumps to BakerHostetler

(Reuters) – BakerHostetler has expanded its broad data-focused practice group with Daniel Kaufman, a longtime leader in the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s consumer protection division, the firm said on Monday.

Kaufman, who worked at the FTC for 23 years, joins BakerHostetler’s Washington, D.C. office as a partner. He previously was deputy director of the agency’s consumer protection bureau, where he also worked for a short stint earlier this year as acting director.

Kaufman will work with the advertising, privacy, emerging technology and cybersecurity teams in the firm’s digital assets and data management (DADM) practice group, the Cleveland-founded firm said.

The group was born out of a restructuring that brought its six data-related teams under one umbrella in early 2020, becoming one of the firm’s “core” practice areas, which also include business, intellectual property, tax, litigation, and labor and employment. The firm launched a seventh team under the data practice a few months later with the arrival of Norton Rose Fulbright privacy leader Jeewon Kim Serrato.

The reshuffling has increased demand and revenue across the seven teams in the practice and has served as a recruiting tool. There are at least 80 lawyers working in the group full time, and another 30 to 40 from other practices collaborating with them, Ted Kobus, chair of the DADM group, said recently.

The data group is the 1,000-lawyer firm’s “fastest growing practice group,” Jeff Paravano, managing partner of the firm’s Washington office, said in a Monday statement on Kaufman’s hire.

Law firms continue to seek talent for privacy and data security groups, as clients across all industries face new challenges in navigating the evolving legal and regulatory landscape.

Kaufman has worked on more than 1,000 cases related to new consumer and privacy concerns, deceptive advertising and financial services matters, BakerHostetler said. Prior to holding the deputy director role at the FTC for nearly a decade, Kaufman was the consumer protection unit’s chief of staff, attorney-advisor to former commission chair Deborah Platt Majoras and staff attorney in the advertising division, the firm said.

Kobus, in a statement, said Kaufman “has worked on nearly all of the FTC’s most significant consumer protection cases during the past decade.”

“Navigating the compliance landscape in the advertising, privacy and data security world is challenging, and Daniel will be a great resource for our clients,” he said.

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