Robert Blamires of Latham & Watkins/courtesy photo



As clients grapple with new compliance questions in a post-GDPR world, Latham & Watkins has hired data privacy expert Robert Blamires to help them navigate evolving multijurisdictional privacy laws.

Blamires, who was most recently a counsel at White & Case, joined Latham’s San Francisco office on Wednesday as counsel in the firm's technology transactions practice.

Blamires moved to the Bay Area when his former firm, U.K.-based Fieldfisher, opened a Palo Alto office in late 2012. After deciding to stay and build out his legal career in California, Blamires joined the San Francisco office of U.K. law firm Osborne Clarke in 2014. Shortly after that, he moved again in 2015 to join White & Case in Palo Alto.

Qualified in the U.S., England and Wales, and Ireland, Blamires said he is particularly sought after by U.S. technology companies for advice on cross-border data privacy compliance issues, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, U.S. privacy laws, and global data breach notification standards.

Blamires worked within the legal departments at Twitter and Facebook though secondments while at White & Case.

“My joining is part of Latham's wider growth strategy for its global data privacy team, spearheaded by my colleagues, including Michael Rubin in the firm's San Francisco office and Gail Crawford in London," he said.

Rubin, a former co-chairman of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati's privacy and data protection practice who joined Latham last September, said in a statement, "few people have Rob’s first-hand experience of advising clients both on the GDPR and on complex issues of U.S. privacy law, experience that will benefit our clients’ business-critical legal considerations regarding U.S., European and cross-border data privacy issues."

Latham, which saw its annual revenue exceed $3 billion last year, opened its San Francisco office in 1990 and its Silicon Valley office in 1997. The 2,500-lawyer firm said it has over 200 attorneys stationed the two Bay Area offices.

The firm's Silicon Valley office most recently hired veteran dealmaker Greg Roussel in August from Fenwick & West to boost its technology transaction capabilities. In April, the firm’s San Francisco office recruited longtime Wilson Sonsini corporate and emerging companies partner Todd Carpenter.