LSU Law Class of 2009 alumni Sarah Anderson and Darrell Miller returned to the Law Center on Nov. 7 to speak with current students about emerging career opportunities in cyberlaw and cybersecurity.
As LSU Law alumni Darrell Miller (’09) and Sarah Anderson (’09) began their presentation for the “What is Cyberlaw/Cybersecurity?” event held at the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center on Nov. 7, multiple neon-colored lines whizzed across an “attack map” displayed on the screen behind them.
“Each line on the map represents someone trying to hack one of the fake businesses I created,” Miller said of the faux profiles he created to research trends in cyberattacks.
Miller and Anderson returned to the Law Center to discuss opportunities in the fields of cyberlaw and cybersecurity. “What is Cyberlaw/Cybersecurity?” was one of many area-specific events held by the LSU Law Career Services Office during the fall semester, and the first to focus on cyberlaw and cybersecurity.
“Each semester, the CSO conducts a series called ‘Practice Area Highlights’ to introduce students to new, emerging areas of law,” LSU Law Director of Career Services Gwen Ferrell explained. “Cyberlaw/Cybersecurity is currently one of the fastest growing practice areas in the industry, and we were fortunate to have two experts locally among our alumni.”
Miller recently became Senior Cybersecurity Developer R&D at Arctic Wolf, a Minnesota-based cybersecurity company that provides security monitoring to detect and respond to cyber threats. He works remotely from Baton Rouge and previously worked for four years in the Cyber Crime Unit/Incident Response with the Louisiana State Police. While Miller may practice law in what some consider a “non-traditional way,” he noted that virtually every area of law is now affected by cyberlaw and cybersecurity.
“If you can solve problems and break large problems down into small problems, there is a place for you,” said Miller, who holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from LSU and a master’s degree in software engineering from Penn State University.
As founder and owner of SWA Law LLC, a boutique law firm specializing in cyberlaw, Anderson has seen firsthand how cybersecurity issues can impact areas of employment law, intellectual property law, and banking and finance laws, just to name a few examples.
She has participated in over 100 cyber incident responses in her career and discovered “a lot of people think they aren’t dealing with regulated data, but they are.” Regulated data is information that is protected by legal statute or regulation mandating certain restrictions, like individual academic and financial records and government-issued identification numbers.
“There are no walls when it comes to cyberlaw,” she said.
Because of the growing need for businesses to protect their data, and with many businesses entering into contracts with managed service providers, Anderson and Miller said legal career opportunities in cyberlaw and cybersecurity are plentiful. They also encouraged LSU Law students to have an open perspective on where they gain their law experience, noting law firms and state agencies are actively seeking attorneys who are familiar with cyberlaw.
Anderson added that obtaining certifications in data security, such as the Global Information Assurance Certification (GIAC) Law of Data Security and Investigations (GLEG), will help students stand out as candidates along with expanding their technology knowledge.
“It does take someone who is willing to dive in and learn about technology,” she said. “But you don’t have to be a technology expert. You need to understand how the law applies to this concept.”
