Ann Marie Mortimer

In what is considered the largest data breach in history, 3 billion Yahoo accounts were hacked globally in 2013. When the inevitable law suits were filed, Yahoo called Mortimer, a data security and class action specialist at Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, to defend it.

“We live in a digital world where almost every day there is an announcement of some kind of breach or intrusion,” Mortimer said. “It’s not that companies don’t care about security or that security is lax; it’s because if you have a persistent and sophisticated intruder, who’s attacking your borders 24/7. They only have to be right once.”

There were 29 federal class actions and seven parallel state court class actions and Mortimer served as first chair on all of them. After the litigation was over, she helped broker what is expected to be the largest global settlement in history, once it is approved. In Re: Yahoo! Inc. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation 16-MD02752, (N.D. Cal., filed Dec. 7, 2016)

Looking back, “it was the most challenging and exciting opportunity of my legal career,” Mortimer said.

When it comes to data breach cases, she said courts struggle to find a framework for parties to prove article III standing. Since so few, if any, have gone to trial, there is very little precedent to draw from, she said.

“There is very little track record particularly in the mass breach context,” Mortimer said. “None of the cases have actually gone through the crucible of a trial, and have all instead maybe gotten to class cert. However, there is a problem — the bigger the breach — with trying to show that a class has been damaged in a way that’s uniform and that there’s a methodology where it can be proven across the class.”

In the Yahoo litigation for example, Mortimer said, as in all class actions, one of the first issue to look at is, “do the claims match the proposed class?”

After proving elements of certain claims were limited to California, Mortimer was able to reduce the scope of certain nationwide class claims, down to California residence only.

While she has made a name for herself in data breach security, Mortimer said she is energized by all kinds of cases and enjoys the multitude of issues.

“In all sincerity, the great joy of being a lawyer is to have an opportunity, every single day, to work on cases with slightly different facts, slightly different challenges, and nuances,” Mortimer said. “I’ve had the small cases and the privilege of the huge cases like Yahoo but honestly, each of them have a little piece of my heart, they’ll all interesting.”

— Blaise Scemama