Ex-Justice Leader Carlin Seeks Paul Weiss Growth in Cyber Work

John Carlin, a former top Justice Department national security official who joined Paul Weiss, said he expects to help his new firm’s cyber group grow as companies are inundated with risks.

Cyber-predators are attacking corporations in ways the companies haven’t seen before, spurring a greater need for preparation, Carlin said in an interview after joining Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

Federal agencies in coming months and years are going to provide assistance, he said, in part to answer the question, “How do we share cyber information between corporations and government?”

Paul Weiss’s Tuesday announcement that Carlin would be a co-head of the firm’s cybersecurity and data protection group came a day after a pro-Russia hacker group called Killnet issued a cyberattack against several U.S. airports, including those in Chicago, New York, Atlanta, and Los Angeles.

Carlin said he met with a group of airport managers on the topic at his prior firm, Morrison & Foerster. The managers were concerned about what to do in the case of attacks like the Killnet strike, he said.

Carlin’s new practice also includes former Obama administration Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and Jeannie Rhee, who worked with former Special Counsel Robert Mueller as leader of the team investigating Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Carlin said companies have been getting used to being treated both as villains, when federal regulators go after them for violating cyber-related rules—as well as victims, when the government deems corporations in need of assistance, including by sharing threat information.

“Corporations really are on the front lines of these national security threats in ways they haven’t been before,” said Carlin, who works out of the firm’s K Street office in Washington.

He was a top adviser to second-ranking Justice official Lisa Monaco, and before that he was a MoFo partner for a four-year stretch. He was the chair of the firm’s global risk & crisis management group before rejoining the department in early 2021.

After rejoining Justice, he initially served as acting deputy attorney general. More recently, he served as principal associate deputy attorney general.

Carlin assisted Monaco and Attorney General Merrick Garland with an initiative to stem corporate crime, along with task forces to address cryptocurrecy theft, and to pursue those who helped Russia evade sanctions, according to a Paul Weiss statement.

Carlin also assisted with DOJ’s probe into the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

During the Obama administration, Carlin served as assistant attorney general for Justice’s national security division.

He co-authored a book, “Dawn of the Code War: America’s Battle Against Russia, China, and the Rising Global Cyber Threat” in 2018, which detailed cyber risks from state actors.

“John offers the full package,” said Paul, Weiss litigation department co-chair Jessica Carey in a firm statement. That includes “unmatched government experience running investigations on a variety of sensitive, high-stakes cases, and experience in private practice guiding companies safely through crippling cyber incidents.”