CSU Cleveland-Marshall College of Law’s Center for Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection has provided educational and training opportunities and developed cutting-edge research on cybersecurity and privacy issues since it was founded in 2016. Now in its sixth year, the Center has established itself as a leader in the cybersecurity sector with a number of recent CSU C|M|LAW graduates now working at the intersection of law and cybersecurity. Three of these graduates, Terence Check ’14, Melissa Bilancini ’18 and Brendan Whitted ’18, are working in the field and provided a road map for the current and upcoming generation of CSU C|M|LAW students on the possibilities that their education offers.
Terrance Check '14
Terence serves as Senior Counsel for Infrastructure Security in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). An operational component within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), CISA leads the national effort to secure physical and virtual infrastructure from threats including terrorism and cyber-intrusions. In his role as agency counsel, Terence advises senior political leaders and staff about operational law issues involving CISA's Infrastructure Security Division, primarily on the law that governs what CISA can or cannot do to secure the country. Terence loves his job and that he is serving the country, taking pride that his line of work takes courage, integrity, and commitment, in addition to traditional legal skills.
Terence came to CSU C|M|LAW intending to become a prosecutor but also had an interest in cybersecurity and international affairs. Part way through law school, he decided to pursue his passion for national security law. He moved to Washington D.C. after graduating from CSU C|M|LAW and worked part-time while enrolled in a national security LLM program at American University.
“My educational background provided me the substantive knowledge base to succeed in this area, and experiential learning opportunities like internships and externships also provided a great deal of practical knowledge that really paid off well,” explained Terence. “Luckily, CSU C|M|LAW provides plenty of courses to build your substantive knowledge. Current students should do what I did – take every course you can take with great professors like Brian Ray, Milena Sterio, Jonathan Witmer-Rich, and Marc Sundahl, just to name a few.”
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Melissa Bilancini '18
Melissa is a member of the Digital Assets and Data Management Group’s Privacy and Digital Risk Class Action and Litigation Team as an Associate at Baker & Hostetler LLP. In her position, she defends clients against alleged data privacy claims, with a particular emphasis in claims raising allegations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Specifically, she defends health care providers against putative class action claims arising from vendor data security incidents, sophisticated cyberattacks and ransomware incidents, and allegations of violations of website privacy.
After law school, Melissa spent two years as a staff attorney at the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas before joining Baker & Hostetler LLP. But during law school she already knew cybersecurity was a field she wanted to pursue. Melissa took the full curriculum of cybersecurity and privacy courses at CSU C|M|LAW and worked as a research assistant for the Center for Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection.
“CSU C|M|LAW cybersecurity and privacy courses offer a good overview of a variety of emerging areas of cybersecurity and privacy law,” explained Melissa. “Most importantly, in my opinion, many of the faculty teaching C|M|LAW’s cybersecurity and privacy curriculum are practitioners. I encourage students who are interested in this field to use their opportunity to build relationships with their professors and the guest lecturers that visit their classes.”
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Brendan Whitted ’18
Brendan is a Privacy Compliance Officer at KeyBank, where he works as part of a team overseeing KeyBank's compliance with all applicable privacy laws and regulations. This includes, among others, the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, a financial privacy regulation that governs a financial institution’s safeguarding of consumer data. His day-to-day responsibilities include reviewing privacy concerns involved in incoming proposed relationships with vendors and assigning appropriate risk ratings, updating and building compliance programs and internal monitoring groups, and tracking proposed state privacy regulation and their applicability to the bank.
Brendan ended up interested up interested in a career in cybersecurity by chance, enrolling in an elective course during 2L year that focused on cybersecurity on a whim. He was quickly hooked and ultimately made Data Privacy and Cybersecurity his J.D. concentration. Brendan spent three years after graduation working at a small legal practice in Broadview Heights while building his legal experience and privacy knowledge and qualifications, including securing his Certified information Privacy Professional certification.
“What I learned at CSU C|M|LAW was, and still is, invaluable,” explained Brandon. “The classes offered in the cybersecurity curriculum provide understanding of the most talked-about and easily one of the most complex areas of law to date. I still to this day owe my love of privacy law to those who taught me at Cleveland-Marshall.”
"We have an impressive array of talented graduates working in all areas of this field from national security to incident response to privacy compliance and even a pen-testing expert,” said CSU C|M|LAW Professor Brian Ray, the Leon M. and Gloria Plevin Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection. “Not all of them had the benefit of taking courses in our cybersecurity and data privacy certificate program, but they each recognize the value of learning the technical, legal and business aspects of data security and privacy that our program offers. The demand in these fields will only continue to grow and we're excited about the prospects for our current and future students in this program.”
For more information on C|M|LAW's JD, Online MLS and professional cybersecurity programs, contact Professor Brian Ray.