We each currently sit as leaders for the American Bar Association’s Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Committees. Our work often involves providing our clients with relevant guidance regarding applicable regulations and policies to issues involving computer-driven and software technologies subject to incident or crises management responsive timeframes – that are often within large-scale, front-page newsworthy, and complex international litigation. We are known Silicon Valley-based thought leaders and frequent speakers in corporate governance, public policy and professional or industry standardization for the protection of IT and other critical infrastructure.
Paul Starrett
Paul Starrett is a licensed attorney and private investigator specializing in high-profile investigations, compliance consulting and legal counseling especially where electronic data is central. He is founder and CEO of Starrett Consulting, Inc., a full-service investigations and consulting firm where they leverage open-source and commercial data-science applications to analyze structured and unstructured data. His 25-year career includes roles as general counsel and chief risk officer, information-security software engineer, information-management consultant and corporate-security executive. Paul holds a Master of Science degree in Predictive Analytics from Northwestern University and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Taxation from Golden Gate University. He is also a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and EnCase Certified Computer Forensics Examiner (EnCE). Paul’s background in cryptography and similar technologies includes four years as a ‘C’ and ‘Java’ programmer for RSA Security, specifically in the areas of encryption, access and authentication. Prior to this, Paul worked at Network Associates, specifically for one of its subsidiaries, PGP (Pretty Good Privacy, an open-source cryptography library). Primarily, Paul worked on projects involving integration of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) systems with other access and authentication tools as well as advice on the adherence of software tools to digital-signature laws. Paul was also an original contributor to the PKI Assessment Guide, Information Security Committee of the American Bar Association (2002) and was lead author of “Digital Signatures” with McGraw-Hill (RSA Press) (2002). Paul (and his team) are also avid Python programmers where they design applications to track blockchain addresses and transactions along with other unsupervised and supervised machine-learning tools to mine these records for additional facts.
Rafa Baca
Rafa Baca first became interested in mining Bitcoin at Stanford University’s Bitcoin Edge Initiative and has never looked back. Rafa is passionately interested in applying the blockchain and smart contracts to novel applications. His experience uniquely bridges the divide between the digital and real world applications with a focus on regulation and policy, business and software development. Rafa is an experienced San Francisco FinTech entrepreneur and Angel Investor. Rafa has a JD (law degree), MS in Computer Science (Data Science) and BS in Mechanical Engineering. Rafa is a passionate software developer, digital forensics investigator, as well as a member of the Stanford Blockchain group and San Francisco Legal Hackers.
Rafa has 20 years of experience as a Federal Regulatory and Tech lawyer, a Registered US Patent and IP lawyer that includes a depth of experience in complex commercial litigation, legal transactions, business intelligence, tradesecrets, patent prosecution, and global asset portfolio strategy and regulatory work in tech and engineering. He is an active speaker in GDPR Data Privacy regulations and a national expert in Artificial Intelligence and Big Data and international law. As a developer, Rafa has successfully lead a team of software engineers and lawyers to create a software system for worldwide multilingual business contracts by using artificial intelligence to automate risk aversions while in-house legal and sales teams draft sales contracts. Rafa is a dual citizen of the USA and Spain (EU) and well versed with the General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR.