Eric D. Vandevelde

A former Department of Justice cyber crimes prosecutor, Vandevelde started out as a Silicon Valley software engineer.

“I sort of fell into this niche, this overlap between cybersecurity and white collar,” Vandevelde said.

“In the late ’90s, early 2000s, there was the first dot com bubble and crash back then. I was looking for a way to marry my technology skills with something else and I decided to go to law school,” said Vandevelde, who never thought he would become a cyber crimes attorney.

“Nobody thought about that,” he explained of the time. “Initially thought I would go into patent law.”

Vandevelde has represented clients in some of the highest profile, highest stakes cases in the country, including Apple Inc. in the so-called “Apple v. FBI” case involving the government’s demand for assistance in connection with the San Bernardino terrorist attack.

Although many of his clients and the underlying facts of his cases remain confidential, they include a major news, search, and social media company; a leading education software and research institution; and one of the nation’s top medical device companies, among others.

He also provides advice to corporate boards, executives, and in-house legal teams on cybersecurity and data privacy-related policies and best practices.

Recently, Vandevelde represented MySpace in responding to a data breach that resulted in over 360 million user records being stolen then offered for sale in a hacker forum.

According to Vandevelde, “At the time, it was one of the biggest of all time.”

“It was one of those fast moving, trying to figure out what happened, while at the same time trying to remediate any issues or vulnerabilities that may exist” cases, he said.

He also represented leading iOS and Android gaming company, Machine Zone Inc., in connection with an internal investigation into, and subsequent criminal referral of, a former employee for theft of trade secrets.

“The engineer was told he was going to be terminated and accessed confidential information,” Vandevelde said of the case.

Within a matter of weeks, the company detected the data breach, which led to an internal investigation.

The former employee was ultimately charged with violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1832(a)(2) and arrested at the San Francisco International Airport, whilst preparing to board a flight to China.

As a DOJ cyber crimes prosecutor, “you learn a lot about the triage of a crisis and how to deal with it and prioritize it,” said Vandevelde, who held the position from 2007 to 2014.

After leaving the position, he joined Gibson Dunn.

“I was looking for new challenges and I knew people at Gibson Dunn who are phenomenal lawyers,” he said. “It was one of those things where it was the right time for me to move on and seek new challenges.”

— Skylar Dubelko