Peter Marta of Hogan Lovells. 

Peter Marta, most recently chief cybersecurity lawyer at JPMorgan Chase & Co., has joined the privacy and cybersecurity practice of Hogan Lovells in New York as a partner, where he plans to help clients handle regulatory issues and cyber threats.

Marta, who spent about six and a half years at the bank, led a global team of five lawyers who counseled the bank's 3,000-person cybersecurity department. Part of Marta's job at JPMorgan involved looking at law firms' cybersecurity efforts. While he said that he was not a technologist, he said that on the whole, law firms are doing better than they were five years ago. The same could be said for many industries, he said.

Marta, who joined Hogan Lovells on Monday, said his practice at the firm will likely initially focus on clients in the financial services industry, but he wants to grow it to also serve other clients affected by the same legal and regulatory issues. He declined to say whether JPMorgan would be a client.

“Organizations need to be thinking beyond just the personal data breach context, which gets most of the attention,” he said, noting there's a “host of potential other cyber-related events” that have complex regulatory and compliance implications.

Overall, Marta said he hopes to help clients enhance “their cybersecurity programs to address the ever-evolving threat landscape and to understand the evolving expectations of regulators.”

While Marta considered other firms, he said, the good reputation of Hogan Lovells' cybersecurity lawyers set the firm apart. Harriet Pearson, who leads the firm's cybersecurity practice, was a key player in his decision to move, he said; he met her through the cybersecurity legal conference she runs at Georgetown University.

Many of the 41 lawyers listed on Hogan Lovells' website in its privacy and cybersecurity group are affiliated with its Washington, D.C., office. With Marta's addition, the firm has three New York-based lawyers in the group, according to the firm's website. Pearson said in an email that her team operates globally, but noted that Marta's position in New York will help the firm support its clients there.

“Cybersecurity and data protection are top-of-mind issues for almost all clients and years ago Hogan Lovells recognized that and invested in growing a practice,” she said, noting the addition of Edith Ramirez, former chair of the Federal Trade Commission, in 2017.

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 2003, Marta practiced at Kirkland & Ellis and then worked for the U.S. government as an operations officer starting in 2006. He declined to identify the government agency he worked in.

From there, he went to JPMorgan in 2013, according to his LinkedIn profile. He started out as a mortgage litigator, a position he held for about six months, but moved to a cybersecurity role once it was created to fill the bank's need for specialized cybersecurity legal advice.