Joseph P Cutler

I ski, read, and play with my wonderful family.  I live in the Pacific Northwest because it is beautiful here, and I take spammers and hackers down for clients like Facebook, provide data privacy and security advice, and have recently become engaged in the world of virtual currency, bitcoin, and FinTech.  I may be a geek, but I love practicing law.

I Counsel in the Litigation group and a member of the firm's Privacy & Security subgroup. My litigation work currently focuses on combating cybercrime, enforcing website terms of use, and representing virtual currency clients before regulatory bodies like state Departments of Financial Institutions.  In addition to my litigation work, I counsel clients in areas related to privacy and data security, consumer protection law, Internet law, and financial services compliance.

I manage a rapid response enforcement team to vigorously defend firm clients, such as Facebook, against illegal spamming, phishing, pretexting, and other forms of malicious Internet behavior.  Actions to prosecute individuals whose actions interfere with client Web sites or Internet activity often include extensive Internet forensic work, cease-and-desist actions, and formal litigation.

I advise clients regarding state and federal privacy and data protection laws, including anti-spamming and anti-phishing statutes, state data protection statutes, and breach notification laws. 

I also provide consumer protection compliance advice to companies regarding their obligations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and fair debt collections practices statutes. This practice focuses primarily on the protection and safeguarding of customer personal data.

I counsel clients on a number of regulatory issues including CPNI compliance for wireless carriers, security breach notification advice and international advice regarding compliance with data protection laws abroad.

I help clients understand and comply with international data transfer laws, particularly when they wish to transfer data across international boundaries in compliance with transnational regulations. I also advise clients regarding operation of Sarbanes-Oxley Whistleblower programs in the EU, and conducting U.S.-based litigation discovery in the EU.  I assist clients in joining the U.S. Department of Commerce's EU Safe Harbor certification program and counsel them with respect to compliance with European Union Directives on privacy, data protection, eCommerce and electronic communications services. I also provide advice to companies regarding compliance with United States sanctions programs (OFAC).

I am deeply involved in the emerging virtual currency market, helping emerging clients understand the regulatory landscapes of state money transmission, federal anti-money laundering laws, and assisting them to take their start-up dreams to a compliant operational reality.  To do this, our team of virtual currency lawyers help clients develop payment flows, draft and implement anti-money laundering programs, privacy policies, terms of service and sale, and other consumer protections to satisfy regulatory requirmenets and to protect their customers.  We also defend them when state and federal regulators or law enforcement approach them with concerns about their business practices or substantive compliance with applicable law.  This space is changing at light speed, and we work hard to keep ourselves and our clients apace with all legal developments.

Pro Bono work is central to my practice. I represent asylum-seekers at all levels of the immigration process.  I have also represented an inmate from the King County Regional Justice Center in a challenge to its medical treatment policies and procedures - and secured a very favorable settlement for him that will hopefully encourage the County to improve its policies and procedures.

For more information on my recent experience, please click here.