Gregory T. Parks is a partner in Morgan Lewis’s Litigation Practice and a co-head of the firm’s Privacy and Cybersecurity Practice. Mr. Parks focuses his practice on privacy, data security, consumer class action, loyalty and gift card payment mechanisms, and other consumer matters for retailers, financial services organizations, and other consumer-facing businesses. He counsels and represents clients in a wide variety of matters, including privacy and data security compliance, counseling, and litigation matters; consumer class actions; data privacy class actions; litigation involving retailers; and products liability and premises liability disputes. Mr. Parks also has a background in antitrust, products liability, commercial disputes arising from mergers and acquisitions, and mortgage matters. Mr. Parks’ litigation experience spans all phases of litigation, trial, and appeal work.
Mr. Parks, as co-head of the firm’s Privacy and Cybersecurity Practice, leads the firm’s efforts on consumer privacy, cybersecurity and data security. The practice involves more than 75 lawyers who handle every aspect of privacy, data security, cybersecurity, and data breaches for corporate clients across all industries. His own work in the area spans both counseling and litigation domestically and internationally. In this realm, Mr. Parks has helped clients through more than 300 data breach events, including immediate response in the aftermath of data breach events; notice to affected individuals or government and consumer reporting entities under applicable laws; and resulting litigation from regulators, consumers, or on behalf of the client to recover the costs of a data breach. Mr. Parks also helps clients understand what is necessary to avoid data breaches and prepare for data breaches that might occur. He has helped more than 200 companies create plans to comply with various privacy and data security laws and other requirements including the Fair Credit Reporting Act, federal and state CAN-SPAM laws, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the FTC Red Flags Rule, FINCen and other anti-money laundering rules, the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), the Child Online Privacy Protection Act, the Massachusetts Data Protection laws, PCI-DSS mandates for credit card security, and many similar requirements. Mr. Parks is a thought leader in this area, frequently publishing articles, teaching classes, or commenting in news media.
Mr. Parks is also the head of the firm’s Retail Practice, which focuses on the unique challenges facing retail companies. In this role, he represents retailers in consumer class actions, privacy and data security matters, real estate litigation, products and premises liability cases, and other similar matters. Mr. Parks also advises retail companies on a wide variety of operational and compliance matters including gift cards, anti-money laundering plans, loyalty programs, advertising and sale issues, data collection and privacy, background checks for employees, layaway programs, credit card compliance, and shoplifting prevention.
Mr. Parks is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and before its state and federal courts. He also has been admitted specially to handle cases in California, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Missouri, Delaware, Virginia, New Jersey, Missouri, and other states.
