Laura Land Himelstein

Laura Land Himelstein advises clients on technology, outsourcing, partnerships, SaaS, licensing, and other complex transactions, policies and projects.  With more than 20 years' experience, Laura serves as a trusted advisor to Fortune 500, mid-market and startup companies in the US and abroad.  Her blend of skills in privacy (CIPP-US); SaaS, outsourcing, IT, M&A and other corporate transactions; IP licensing and counseling; and incident response and cyber risk management enable her to provide comprehensive and integrated legal advice.  She has a practical outlook after working in-house for 15 years at major public companies, where she partnered closely with business, privacy, IT and technology teams to identify and manage risks to deliver business results while reasonably protecting vital interests.  She “gets it” and works effectively with internal teams to calibrate legal efforts based on the strategic importance and relative risk of each project.

Laura's experience includes more than a decade in-house at India-based outsourcing companies, as well as work with Silicon Valley and other “born in the cloud” technology companies.  She has advised data analytics, healthcare, sourcing and vendor management, financial services, fintech, insuretech, incident response, IoT, and product development teams.  Laura particularly enjoys privacy-by-design projects, which require delving deeply into technical details to build internal compliance programs, negotiate DPAs and BAAs, and advise on regulatory issues for implementation of new functionality. In addition, Laura has prior experience as a management-side employment lawyer, including counseling senior executives, negotiating settlements, conducting depositions, and appearing in state and federal courts.  With this deep and broad experiences, Laura readily spots issues and recommends risk mitigation strategies.

AI is Laura's latest passion and focus.  She is a member of the firm's AI Committee. With her knowledge of privacy, IP, data analytics, cyber security and vendor transactions, she is positioned well to handle complex AI matters.  She drafts AI policies, negotiates AI clauses and advises on emerging laws impacting AI use. She has completed the IAPP AI Governance Professional training and regularly attends AI conferences to stay abreast of the latest AI regulations and technology developments.

Laura lives in Old Greenwich, CT with her two sons and works out of Day Pitney's NYC and Stamford offices.  She plays both tennis and pickleball, and enjoys traveling, live music, beaches, boating, museums and reading.