Ryan D. White is a trial and appellate lawyer whose practice focuses on cybersecurity, data privacy, intellectual property, white collar criminal defense, and complex commercial litigation. He was named by the Daily Journal as a Top 20 Cyber Lawyer in 2020.
Prior to joining Halpern May Ybarra Gelberg LLP, Mr. White served for more than nine years as a federal prosecutor, most recently as Chief of the Cyber & Intellectual Property Crimes Section for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. In that capacity, he oversaw the cyber and intellectual property investigations for the largest district in the country. In this role, Mr. White led the federal response to cyber threats in Southern California, regularly working with a range of federal, state, and local officials on these sensitive investigations. Mr. White was also one of a select group of prosecutors who sat on the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Working Group in Washington D.C., where he built strong relationships with leadership in the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal and National Security Divisions.
As a cyber prosecutor, Mr. White led a wide variety of high-profile and international investigations, including the dismantlement of Wall Street Market, the world’s largest darknet marketplace, and the “Celebgate” data breach, resulting in the conviction of five defendants for hacking into thousands of iCloud, Gmail, and Facebook accounts. As a lead trial attorney, he has won cases involving computer intrusion into critical infrastructure, theft of trade secrets, trademark infringement, bank fraud, identity theft, and weapons and narcotics trafficking. Mr. White also served as a member of the Criminal Appeals Section, where he argued numerous times before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2016, Mr. White received the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service for his leadership role in the investigation of civil rights abuses by high-ranking members of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.
Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mr. White was an attorney at Latham & Watkins LLP, where his practice focused on complex commercial disputes.
Mr. White received his undergraduate degree with honors from Northwestern University and then graduated from the UCLA School of Law, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the UCLA Law Review. After law school, Mr. White clerked for the Honorable Kim M. Wardlaw on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mr. White is a founding member and Officer of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Privacy and Cybersecurity Section, is a member of the Chancery Club of Los Angeles, serves on the Board of the UCLA Alumni Association, and is an Adjunct Professor at Loyola Law School, where he has taught a course on cyber and intellectual property crimes since 2014. Mr. White is admitted to practice law in California, and before the United States District Court for the Central District of California, the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.