Travis G. LeBlanc

It would not be very wrong to say that LeBlanc’s practice really zoomed over the last couple of years. As a vice-chair of Cooley’s cyber, data and privacy practice, he leads the firm’s representation of Zoom Video Communications, Inc. in those areas.

“Clearly, what’s kept me busiest is Zoom,” he said. “No doubt about it.”

Among the matters he and several Cooley teams have handled for the videoconferencing powerhouse, he listed multiple federal, state and international investigations, consumer privacy class actions, securities class actions, consumer privacy class actions in Canada and Israel and a pair of U.S. Justice Department investigations.

The firm handled Zoom’s IPO in April 2019, and by September, LeBlanc was defending the company in a Federal Trade Commission investigation into its cybersecurity and privacy practices. “So we started representing them … well before the pandemic.”

But when COVID-19 arrived, the company’s videoconferencing platform designed to replace in-person business meetings suddenly was being used by consumers, schools and others in a wide variety of other settings and situations. “A spotlight was put on them unlike any other company has seen this early in its trajectory,” he said.

LeBlanc closed out the FTC investigation in September 2020 with a nonmonetary settlement. The previous spring, he quickly resolved an investigation by the New York attorney general with a simple letter-agreement and no monetary penalty.

At the same time the New York investigation started, so did a string of class actions against the company alleging unauthorized sharing of user information and other claims. The parties settled last July, with final approval set for April. In re Zoom Video Communications, Inc. Privacy Litigation, 5:20-cv-02155 (N.D. Cal., filed March 30, 2020).

Beyond Zoom, he has had several rather unusual cases recently, as well. He is defending educational technology company Chegg, Inc. over a data breach. When a judge ruled a class action had to be arbitrated, the plaintiffs’ attorney filed about 16,000 individual arbitration requests, creating one of the largest mass arbitrations in U.S. history. LeBlanc reached a good settlement and expects the case to be dismissed soon.

For another case, he and his team had to subpoena Craigslist, phone companies, taxi companies and several pizza parlors to figure out who was pranking employees of an online game company. Once they identified him, they contacted his parents and the harassment stopped.

When LeBlanc is not representing Cooley’s clients, he serves on a government body called the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that oversees the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies. The five-member board has just two members at the moment.

“So in addition to being a full-time partner at a law firm … I also run a federal agency.”

- Don Debenedictis