Squire Patton Boggs has expanded its data privacy practice on the East Coast with the addition of two lawyers from Arent Fox Schiff and BakerHosteler.  

Julia Jacobson joins Squire from Arent Fox as a partner in New York, while Shea Leitch joins as of counsel from BakerHosteler in Washington DC.  

The duo have been added to Squire’s data privacy practice, which currently boasts more than 80 partners and associates across the firm’s global office network. 

“With a team spanning 15 countries, we have built a comprehensive global practice that is equipped to meet the increasingly complex needs our clients face as data spans the globe,” said Squire’s data privacy practice chair Alan Friel.

He added: “Our new team members bring a diverse range of experience and new relationships that will take our practice to even greater heights.”

Jacobson joined Arent Fox in 2019 from K&L Gates, where she was a partner in the tech transactions and data protection practice. She brings more than two decades of experience to Squire’s team, with specific expertise in handling data privacy matters in the consumer products, ecommerce, energy, financial services and healthcare sectors, among others. 

On her move, Jacobson said she was “attracted to the breadth of Squire’s global platform and its commitment to building a premiere privacy team as the regulatory environment continues to get more complex and risks for clients grow”. 

Leitch, meanwhile, has nearly a decade of experience assisting commercial clients with the creation and development of their global privacy and security programmes. She joined BakerHosteler as an associate in 2018, having previously worked for Orrick and PwC as a data privacy and cybersecurity associate between 2013 and 2017. 

The latest appointments come just three months after Squire added significant heft to its data privacy group across the pond by hiring three partners from Wiggin, Womble Bond Dickinson and KPMG alongside one consultant in London and Madrid. 

David Naylor, who joined from Wiggin in London, was also named head of the UK practice after serving in the same leadership role at his former firm. 

Another firm to have grown its data privacy bench recently is Baker McKenzie, which last week hired two partners – former Manhattan District Attorney’s Office bureau chief Liz Roper and Baker Botts IP, tech transactions and privacy lawyer Cynthia Cole – to build its capabilities in the US. Roper joined the firm in New York, while Cole moved across in Palo Alto.