Jim Pastore is a litigation partner and a member of the firm’s Data Strategy & Security practice and Intellectual Property Litigation Group. The Legal 500 US (2023), which recognizes Mr. Pastore for his cybersecurity and data privacy work, has described him as a “brilliant litigator” who is “an exceptional attorney” and “smart, patient and flexible in his approach.” Chambers Global (2024) and Chambers USA (2023) which recognize Mr. Pastore as a leading lawyer for Privacy and Data Security, describe him as “excellent and … very well renowned in the industry,” “fantastic - a very solid and extraordinarily strong lawyer” and “a brilliant cybersecurity attorney.” Chambers USA (2023) also places Mr. Pastore in the top band for Incident Response. Sources have said that he is “truly a remarkable attorney in every way” and that he has a “great knowledge of cyber and breach response: the actual nuts and bolts of breach response and managing the process.” Named as a Cybersecurity Trailblazer by The National Law Journal, Mr. Pastore has also been named to Cybersecurity Docket’s “Incident Response 40,” a collection of 40 of the “best and brightest” incident response attorneys in the country, every year since the list’s inception. Benchmark Litigation named Mr. Pastore to its Under 40 Hot List and Law 360 named him a Rising Star for his cybersecurity work.
From 2009 to 2014, he served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Criminal Division of the Southern District of New York, where he was assigned to the Complex Frauds Unit and Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Section. He successfully litigated eight jury trials to verdict and was the lead prosecutor in United States v. Monsegur, a/k/a “Sabu” and Operation Cardshop, both of which were named to the FBI’s top 10 cases of 2012. Mr. Pastore also led Operation Dirty R.A.T., which targeted the creators and users of Blackshades ransom and malware, resulting in the largest ever worldwide law enforcement action against cybercriminals. In connection with the so-called “doomsday virus,” Mr. Pastore obtained a unique order to prevent catastrophic Internet outage.
Prior to 2009, Mr. Pastore was an associate at Debevoise, working on a variety of high-profile intellectual property matters, including the well-publicized Google Books copyright litigation.
Mr. Pastore is routinely sought out as a speaker on cybersecurity and data privacy, having been invited to present to the Department of Justice’s National Cyber Security Division, the DOJ’s National Advocacy Center, Georgetown Law’s Cybersecurity Law Institute, the FBI-led International Conference on Cyber Security, the annual meeting of the Association of Life Insurance Counsel (ALIC) and the Fiduciary & Investment Risk Management Association (FIRMA)’s National Risk Management Training Conference, as well as to the boards of multiple public companies.
Mr. Pastore is a co-author of the Practising Law Institute’s 2023 edition of the “Privacy Law Answer Book.” His other publications include “Artificial Intelligence in Class Action Litigation,” New York Law Journal (December, 2023); “Debevoise Discusses White House’s National Cybersecurity Strategy,” CLS Blue Sky Blog (March, 2023); “NYDFS Proposes Significant Changes to Its Cybersecurity Rules,” NYU Compliance & Enforcement (August, 2022); “A New Era of Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) Privacy and Cybersecurity Oversight: Top Ten Things Companies Should Know When Assessing FTC Compliance and Exposure,” NYU Compliance & Enforcement Blog (January, 2022); “What Stablecoin Industry Can Expect From Congress In 2022,” Law360 (January, 2022); “Debevoise & Plimpton on the Latest Round of SEC Cybersecurity Enforcement Actions,” Columbia Blue Sky Blog (September, 2021); “Key Takeaways from the First Year of CCPA Enforcement,” Compliance & Enforcement (August, 2021); “Destruction Emerges as a Powerful Enforcement Measure for AI: FTC Requires Company to Delete Models Trained with Improperly Utilized Consumer Data,” Compliance & Enforcement (January, 2021); “Post-Election Law Privacy Law Prospects,” Compliance & Enforcement (November, 2020); “AI Legal Work Is Mirroring Cybersecurity Practice Path,” Bloomberg Law (September, 2020); “Schrems II – Where are we now?,” Compliance & Enforcement (August, 2020); “Cybersecurity: Evaluating Transactional Risk,” Transaction Advisors (July, 2015); “A Closer Look,” Best's Review (June, 2015); “New York State Department Of Financial Services Expands Its Cyber Focus To Insurers,” FC&S Legal (April, 2015); and “Debevoise & Plimpton On Cybersecurity: Reducing Threats To Private Equity Firms And Their Portfolio Companies,” The Newsletter of the Private Equity Growth Capital Council (March, 2015).
Mr. Pastore earned his J.D. with distinction from Stanford Law School in 2004. He served as Co-President of the Stanford Law & Technology Association and was a member of the Stanford Technology Law Review. He received his B.A. summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Notre Dame in 2001, where he was a Notre Dame Scholar, the recipient of the James E. Robinson Award for outstanding senior English major and one of 40 class members of the Honors Program of the College of Arts & Letters.