McDermott Will & Emery offices in Washington, D.C. March 13, 2019. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

McDermott Will & Emery is continuing a push to build up its data privacy expertise, adding the co-chair of Akerman's privacy, cybersecurity and emerging technologies team.

Carolyn Metnick's decision to join McDermott in its hometown Chicago office comes on the heels of the firm hiring Laura Jehl as the new global head of its privacy and cybersecurity practice. Similar to Metnick, Jehl was a co-leader of Baker & Hostetler's blockchain technologies and digital currencies team before she jumped ship.

Unlike Jehl, however, Metnick is sliding into McDermott's health practice. She works with health care systems, hospitals and physician groups on their regulatory and transactional issues, advising on health information privacy and security issues and HIPAA compliance.

At Florida-based Akerman, Metnick co-led a team of around 10 "core" lawyers whose work stretched across a number of industries beyond health care, she said. The work was exciting, but she said the small size of the group made it a challenge to stay on the cutting edge of regulatory and legal developments.

At McDermott, Metnick said she will be able to drill into her health care practice while leveraging the 69 lawyers who are in McDermott's privacy and cybersecurity practice. Metnick said she was finalizing her discussions with McDermott when it hired Jehl, a decision that Metnick said "put her over the moon."

"There's no better place to practice health law," Metnick said, on her decision to join McDermott. "I have a number of friends and colleagues who work at McDermott, so it was a very easy move in that respect."

Metnick's first day at McDermott was Monday. She said her clients will making the jump from Akerman to McDermott as well. She is not joining McDermott with any leadership role like she had at Akerman.

Eric Zimmerman, the global head of McDermott's health practice, touted Metnick in a press release as being "well known in the industry for having worked with clients on some of their most sensitive, challenging and complex health data privacy, data breach and security issues."

Metnick noted that she was the 18th lawyer to join Akerman's Chicago office. The Florida-based firm planted the flag in Chicago in 2014 with a staff of eight attorneys. Since then, Akerman's Windy City outpost has ballooned to over 50 attorneys, and the Chicago-based partner who oversaw the office's growth, Scott Meyers, was promoted to chairman and CEO last month—becoming the firm's first leader outside Florida.

McDermott has more than 250 lawyers in its Chicago headquarters. According to a spokesperson, McDermott has more than 120 lawyers in its health practice, and more than 200 lawyers across the firm whose practice involves any aspect of health law.

Metnick is currently the president of the Illinois Association of Healthcare Attorneys. On Jan. 1, she will pass the torch to Megan Rooney, a Chicago-based McDermott partner and now her colleague.