The following is an excerpt from Practice Perspectives: Vault's Guide to Legal Practice Areas.
Amara Mullins is a tech disputes partner in the Los Angeles office of White & Case and a member of the firm’s global technology industry group, representing technology clients throughout the world in high-stakes litigation, regulatory disputes, and product and compliance counseling. She has worked on cases before the world’s highest courts, including matters involving content moderation, intermediary liability, defamation, consumer protection, privacy and data protection, advertising, and elections, and she regularly advises technology companies on compliance with U.S. and international laws and regulations concerning the same. Amara’s clients include several of the largest online platforms in the world, as well as many other technology companies.
Describe your practice area and what it entails.
Our global tech disputes team at White & Case represents leading technology clients in high-stakes litigation and regulatory disputes all over the world, including matters involving intermediary liability, content moderation, privacy and data protection, AI, advertising, consumer protection, and elections issues. Our team works closely with clients, including their various cross-functional teams, and local counsel in jurisdictions across the globe to develop and drive litigation and regulatory strategy in a consistent and commercial manner and to counsel our clients on legislative and regulatory compliance, as well as product issues. We focus on giving practical and actionable advice in uncertain and ever-evolving legal landscapes.
What types of clients do you represent?
We represent several of the world’s largest online platforms, as well as other market-leading multinational tech companies.
Among other things, I help lead a team that handles international civil litigation for Meta Platforms. I have also been seconded as litigation, content, and compliance counsel for Meta in London, Los Angeles, Paris, and Washington, DC.
What types of cases/deals do you work on?
Our matters include class actions, complex civil and criminal litigations, regulatory actions, pre-litigation disputes, legislative analyses, compliance advice, and product counseling in more than 160 countries across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. The subjects involved are varied and include, for example, intermediary liability, content moderation, privacy and data protection, AI, advertising, consumer protection, and election issues. Dozens of our cases are pending before the highest courts around the world.
In the past few years, I have spent a substantial amount of time co-leading a team that counsels our clients on compliance with the EU’s Digital Services Act and represents very large online platforms in investigations brought by the European Commission concerning the same.
I also spend a substantial amount of my time defending very large online platforms in so-called “scam ads” litigations, as well as counseling my clients on compliance with global election laws.
How did you choose this practice area?
Before law school, I knew that I wanted to have an inter- national practice. I loved the idea of working on issues that mattered around the world that cut across borders, cultures, and languages. I majored in political science in undergrad and got a master’s in international economic policy, working as an editor for two international law journals. In law school, I took a heavy international course load, worked for an inter- national human rights organization, externed at the U.S. Department of State, and participated in my school’s international human rights clinic. During the OCI process, I naturally targeted firms with strong international practices, which led me directly to White & Case. I originally started in our market- leading international arbitration practice but then, as the tech disputes practice began to grow, switched into that practice as a junior associate. It was the perfect combination of all the things that make international work so exciting, engaging, and important: working with brilliant lawyers spread out all over the globe on brand-new, cutting-edge issues that directly impact how billions of people around the world engage with the new technologies that increasingly shape how they interact with each other and live their lives.
What is a “typical” day like and/or what are some common tasks you perform?
It’s not easy to point to a “typical” day since our work can vary so much, but I spend many of my days working closely with clients to address time-sensitive strategy points, whether on the direction we should take in a litigation or regulatory matter or on the risks of rolling out a product to market in various jurisdictions. I balance these ongoing time-sensitive demands against strategy on our longer-term cases, for which I’ll meet regularly with clients and counsel teams; advise clients on the pros and cons of proposed courses of action; pressure- test advice from our many local counsel teams to ensure that it’s contextualized within our clients’ global interests and objectives; draft submissions; guide our clients through trials, mediations, and negotiations with counterparties and regulators; identify and prepare fact and expert witnesses; and much more.
What training, classes, experience, or skills development would you recommend to someone who wishes to enter your practice area?
When we’re hiring recent graduates, we look for the same attributes that many others do in the industry: brains, grit, commercial sense, and social EQ. We prioritize communication skills—both oral and written—and the ability to think fast and communicate in a clear and commercial manner. And, given the ever-evolving nature of our global practice, we want our associates to be curious and comfortable learning new things. It’s helpful, but not at all necessary, if they come in with experience in some of the areas in which we practice.
I typically advise law students to take courses that will help them to build the foundation to become stronger writers, thinkers, and speakers. We can teach them the substance.
What do you like best about your practice area?
The work we do helps to shape the law, precedent, and policy around cutting-edge digital technologies and platforms—especially for social media and internet-based communications platforms—on a global scale. Given that the relevant case law and regulatory regimes are constantly in flux, advising our clients requires creative thinking that accounts for the practical and operational realities of our clients’ businesses. And our work is truly international: We work every day with attorneys and teams in different countries on groundbreaking and headline-making issues that fundamentally impact our clients’ global products and services.
What is unique about your practice area at your firm?
Even at a firm as globally oriented as White & Case, the tech disputes practice is uniquely international: All our matters require close, long-term collaboration with teams in different countries all over the world, and they often require consideration of the interplay between local and international laws as relevant to our multinational clients. Our team specializes in helping global internet-based platforms navigate litigation, regulatory, and compliance challenges, and therefore, we’re uniquely positioned to spot and address global legal issues and then provide our clients with the “speed dial” to a global team that is expert in the field and responsive at all hours around the world.
What are some typical tasks that a junior lawyer would perform in this practice area?
From the start, junior associates in our practice, among other things, work hand in hand with our local counsel teams to consider how international legal, policy, product, and other considerations interplay with jurisdiction-specific ones; research, draft, and develop advice and communicate it to our clients; draft and revise court filings; assist in preparing fact and expert witnesses; advise our clients on the rollout of new products and policies across the globe; and project manage complex litigations, pre-litigation disputes, and regulatory compliance matters. From the outset, our junior associates interact directly with clients and drive strategy, playing a fundamental role in all components of our practice’s day-to-day.
How can lawyers develop greater cultural intelligence in dealing with international transactions and matters?
New lawyers and law students—like all lawyers—should be good listeners, observant, and stay generally curious about other societies, cultures, practices, and systems of law. They should keep up-to-date with current events and legal developments around the world that affect the industries that interest them and, if possible, try to travel or engage directly with classmates or colleagues from and based in other parts of the world. Familiarity with global issues and sensitivity to local legal cultures and practices are invaluable when working with international teams on global matters.