Boies Schiller Flexner has brought on Mark Mao, the former head of the privacy, cybersecurity and information governance practice at Troutman Sanders, to help expand the firm's data privacy practice nationally and internationally.

Mao, who practiced at Troutman Sanders for nearly four years and is fluent in Mandarin, is set to join Boies Schiller's San Francisco office Friday.

“I would not be where I am today without my time at Troutman Sanders,” said Mao in a phone interview this week. Mao said that joining Boies provided the opportunity to join a “world-class platform” and to build out the firm's data privacy, intellectual property and Pacific Rim practices.

“I'm just very thankful for the opportunity to help Boies expand these three major practices,” Mao said. “Boies is looking to supplement the existing practices here and obviously data privacy is a hot field.”

Mao said his practice is about 70% litigation and about 30% counseling on compliance and transactional matters—particularly those involving emerging privacy issues raised by the internet of things, artificial intelligence and cyber breach response. In litigation, he says he handles everything from intellectual property matters, including trademark, copyright, patent and trade secret disputes, to consumer class actions involving privacy and regulatory claims.

“My passion is really emerging technologies that are data-based,” Mao said.

Mao said that he and the firm had several large clients in common including a large, late-stage startup database company, but that he couldn't name specific clients due to privacy concerns within the data and privacy industry.

With Mao's addition, Boies Schiller has about 50 lawyers spread across its four California offices, but fewer than 20 of those lawyers are in the firm's two Northern California offices in Palo Alto and San Francisco.

In a prepared statement, Quyen Ta, who last month was named the joint administrative partner of Boies Schiller's San Francisco office, called Mao “one of the country's most sought-after litigators and advisors in the privacy and cybersecurity fields.”

“He is also a tremendous mentor and has opened the doors for many diverse lawyers,” Ta said. “Having known Mark for nearly two decades, I am excited to work with him to grow BSF's practice in California, Asia, and beyond.”

Firm chair David Boies added that Mao is “an innovative litigator who is valued by his many clients for his ability to develop successful business-oriented solutions to their IP and other challenges.”

Diane Iselin, a spokeswoman for Troutman Sanders, said Wednesday that the firm “will miss Mark and wishes him well.”

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