Ronald I. Raether, Jr. - Lawyer in Irvine, CA

Ron Raether leads the Cybersecurity, Information Governance and Privacy practice group at Troutman Pepper, and is a partner in the firms Consumer Financial Services group. Ron has assisted companies in navigating federal and state privacy laws for over twenty years. His understanding of technology led him to be involved in legal issues that cross normal law firm boundaries, including experience with data security, data privacy, patent, antitrust, and licensing and contracts.

His involvement in seminal data compliance and data use cases has helped define current standards in several areas of the law. He assisted one of the first companies required to provide notice of a data breach and has since successfully defended companies in over 100 class actions. Even as regulators fight to broaden their authority and extend the boundaries of existing statutory schemes like the FCRA to cover data analytics and usage, Ron has adapted his practice to address this unique and shifting business/technology concern.

Ron has represented companies in hundreds of individual FCRA cases involving CRAs, resellers, furnishers, users, and public record vendors and has developed a reputation for assisting companies not traditionally viewed as subject to the FCRA. Ron also has litigated cases involving the DPPA, VPPA, TCPA and other federal and state statutory schemes which regulate the use or security of data. Most recently, Ron has counseled clients on operationalizing the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA). By relying on his knowledge of and experience with other federal and state privacy laws, Ron has enabled companies to navigate around the ambiguities of the CCPA and make compliance decisions that are informed, well-reasoned, and still in line with their business goals.

Ron has used this broad legal experience with privacy issues and his understanding of technology to represent clients in a broad range of matters including data aggregation and analytics, mobile applications, payment technologies, de-identification/anonymization, correlation of data from multiple connected devices, connected-things (IoT), and electronic crash- and consumer-reporting systems.

Ron also advises on pre- and post-incident compliance concerns ranging from privacy policy preparation to development of incident response plans and workflows, addressing post-incident aftermath, and responding to regulatory inquiries. Balancing privacy, cyber security and business functionality, Rons approach to data governance is uniquely designed with the industry in mind as it adapts to the ever-evolving technological and legal landscape.

As a thought leader on these issues, Ron regularly speaks nationally and publishes frequently on cutting-edge compliance developments. Ron is also a Certified Information Privacy Professional.