Peter is Chair of the firm's Intellectual Property and Technology Group and heads the firm's Privacy & Data Security practice. He combines extensive experience in the areas of intellectual property, information technology, privacy and data protection, with a practical appreciation of the business and legal imperatives that can determine a client's success.
His particular focus is helping clients in highly regulated industries navigate through the increasingly complex convergence of information technology and business, offering practical and strategic advice in the following areas:
- Technology procurement and outsourcing arrangements
- Privacy, information security and data breach notification
- Protection and enforcement of IP rights
- Trademark, patent, copyright and software licensing
- Internet law and e-commerce initiatives
Peter represents businesses in a wide range of industries, including information technology, energy, banking, retail, financial services, insurance and healthcare.
Before joining Pierce Atwood in February 2000, Peter served as Intellectual Property and Technology Counsel in the Legal Division of Unum Group (NYSE: UNM), a Fortune 500 company and the world's leading disability insurer. Early in his career, Peter practiced law with the Wall Street firm Chadbourne & Parke LLP in New York.
Recent Experience
- Regularly provide advice regarding compliance with various laws and regulations relating to privacy, data protection and data breach notification, including the GLB Act, FTC Act, HIPAA, HITECH Act and the NAIC model acts and regulations, as well as prepare privacy policies (including for mobile apps)
- Regularly counsel clients that have experienced data breaches with respect to breach notification obligations, incident response, communications with regulators, risk mitigation and litigation strategies
- On behalf of major insurers, banks, retailers, public utilities and health care providers, prepared and negotiated hundreds of technology procurement and outsourcing contracts involving mission critical systems and business processes, including major IT outsourcing deals involving offshore software development and other services
- On behalf of a major U.S. utility, led legal team responsible for preparing and negotiating key technology license and services agreements for full scale deployment of a smart meter solution serving its entire customer base, one of the first such deployments in the United States
- On behalf of HealthInfoNet, an independent statewide health information exchange, led legal team responsible for preparing and negotiating the key information technology agreements for full scale deployment of one of the first (and largest) statewide health information exchanges in the country using clinical data
- On behalf of leading software publishers, prepared and negotiated hundreds of software licenses, software development, application hosting, software as a service, joint development, strategic marketing and distributor (reseller/OEM) agreements
Professional Activities
Adjunct professor at the University of Maine School of Law (teaching privacy, software licensing and copyright law)
Member, Section of Science and Technology Law Information Security Committee, American Bar Association
Frequent invited speaker:
- "Workplace Privacy: Bring Your Own Device to Work Policies,"
University of Maine Law School (March 2013)
- "Financial Services - Information Security and Incident Response in 60 Minutes," CLE presentation to in-house attorneys at a top 10 bank, with C. Ruprecht (March 2013)
- "Managing Cyber Risks in Today’s World – Information Security, Cyber Crimes and Beyond," Maine Bankers Association (November 2012)
- “Ethical Considerations for Lawyers Using the Cloud”, Maine State Bar Association Summer Meeting (June 2012)
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“Property Interests in Databases”, Summer Privacy Institute, University of Maine Law School (June 2012)
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“Vendor Management and Privacy and Security Issues”, Information Security Committee of the ABA (February 2012)
- 46 States and Counting: State and Federal Data Breach Notification, Presentation at CyberCrime 2011 Symposium (November 2011)
- Data Security Breach: Now What? – Presentation to Association of Corporate Counsel Northeast Chapter (May 2011)
- Privacy, Data Security and Breach Notification Obligations under HIPAA, the HITECH Act, and State Laws and Regulations, Presentation to PRISM International (May 2011)
- State Insurance Privacy and Data Security Laws and Regulations, CLE presentation to in-house attorneys of Fortune 500 insurance company (September 2010)
Publications
Chapter entitled "Corporate Names" in Maine Corporation Law and Practice, a corporate treatise published by Tower Publishing in 2004. In this chapter Peter analyzes the standard for approval of corporate names under the Maine Business Corporation Act and explores the intersection of corporate names and unfair competition and trademark law.