What are the top must-haves when you look at a candidate for your team (specialized legal experience vs. project management)? What advice would you give an up-and-coming privacy lawyer?
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Chief Privacy Officer in Finance (non-banking)a year ago
Mindset and liking privacy are quite important, but part of working in privacy is accepting that some aspects of work you produce independently will be trashed. We’re often working on new topics that are moving and developing fast, so it’s hard to say exactly what we’ll need at the end. Maybe 90% of what you’ve done will be forgotten or not required by the end of a project. In terms of specific skills, a privacy team needs to be comprised of diverse people with varying skill sets. Usually, these teams are made up of three different parts. The first is the DPOs from a legal background who can execute the privacy program, like receiving requests like managing data breaches, violations, etc. The second part focuses on operational activities requiring project management/ program management skills. The last part of the team is what I call “control monitoring.” These folks need to have a lot of audit methodology.
Determining the structure and staffing of legal departments involves a completely different analysis. Do you need separate legal project managers, for example?
However, when evaluating any candidate, the must-haves depend entirely on the actual position, the qualifications (which are specified in the job description), and the level of experience specified in the position.