About Reece
Reece Hirsch is a partner in the San Francisco office or Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP specializing in privacy, security and healthcare law. He is a nationally recognized privacy and security law expert and has been listed in Chambers USA: America's Best Lawyers for Business from 2005-2010. Reece was also selected as an "Outstanding Healthcare Information Technology Attorney" by Nightingale's for 2009. Reece is a member of the Board of Directors of 826 National and The Valentino Achak Deng Foundation.
Reece earned his law degree from the University of Southern California and a B.S. degree in journalism from Northwestern University. Prior to law school, Reece worked as a journalist in Atlanta for several years, including a stint as an assistant editor of a business magazine. For three years, he edited and published an arts and entertainment magazine in Atlanta.
Reece lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife Kathy and their dog Simon.
Reece is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the International Association of Thriller Writers.
Q & A
 |
What made you want to write a legal thriller? |
A: After 20 years of practicing law, it's the world I know. One of things I like best about the legal thriller genre is that lawyers are the ultimate insiders. They're privy to their clients' secrets, and guide them through some of their biggest crises. A legal thriller offers the opportunity to take the reader behind the scenes of a world of money and power. In the case of THE INSIDER, it's the world of high-stakes M&A, the encryption software business, and the workings of a big law firm. Of course, to spice things up, I did throw a few challenges at my character Will that I haven't encountered in my practice—like Russian mobsters, a secret government surveillance program, and insider trading and murder investigations.
|
What was your background in writing prior to THE INSIDER? |
A: Ever since I was a kid, I've wanted to tell stories and write fiction, but I didn't really get serious about it until after I turned forty. I heard the clock ticking and realized that if I didn't make a serious effort to complete a novel, I would always regret it. I had taken creative writing classes as an undergraduate at Northwestern, and briefly toyed with the idea of pursuing an M.F.A. When I worked as a journalist, I was a big fan of the New Journalism and the idea of bringing techniques of fiction to feature writing. Tom Wolfe was my journalistic hero.
|
So you published a magazine prior to law school? |
A: After graduating from journalism school and working for a while as an assistant editor of a business magazine, I decided to start a new, free arts and entertainment magazine called Open City. If I'd known how difficult it was to publish a free magazine with zero funding, I probably wouldn't have attempted it. But we managed to publish the magazine for three years, making it from issue to issue solely on ad sales. It was difficult, but I had a great time, worked with some very talented and patient young writers, and I got to interview interesting people like Michael Stipe, Ray Bradbury and Oliver Stone. Eventually, I sold the magazine to another local publication and went to law school.
|
Where did the idea behind THE INSIDER come from? |
A: As a specialist in privacy and security law, I had long been familiar with the Clipper Chip program, which was formulated by the National Security Agency during the first Bush administration. Clipper Chip was a powerful encryption program, based on an algorithm known as Skipjack, which the government intended to offer for commercial use by businesses and individuals. The encryption software contained a chip, dubbed the Clipper Chip, which created a "back-door" that would have permitted law enforcement agencies to access the encrypted communications to combat terrorism. In 1995, during the Clinton administration, the program was ultimately abandoned based upon growing privacy concerns that were raised in Congressional hearings.
After 9-11, during the second Bush administration, it came to light that the NSA had enlisted telecommunications companies to collaborate in domestic surveillance programs. Combining the enormous databases of personal information maintained by the government and telecoms without appropriate oversight seemed to me to be a very dangerous trend. It was then that I thought again of the Clipper Chip program. I considered what might have happened if the Clipper Chip program had never really been abandoned, but had been carried forward through a secret alliance between the NSA and a major encryption software company. And that was how I came up with one of the key plot elements of THE INSIDER.
|
Is your legal practice similar to Will Connelly's? |
A: My practice is more focused on the healthcare industry than Will's, and Will is not a privacy and security expert. However, I do have first-hand knowledge of how M&A deals get negotiated, and the little tricks and gambits that corporate lawyers play upon one another. I brought that experience to bear in the book's negotiation scenes.
|
What does a privacy and security lawyer do? |
A: I advise companies on how to comply with an incredibly complex patchwork of U.S. privacy and security laws and regulations. It's a very rapidly evolving area of the law right now. I help companies better understand how they can, and can't, use your personal information.
|
Do you have anything to do with those letters that I keep getting telling me that I might be a victim of identity theft? |
A: As a matter of fact, I do. The classic example of a security breach is when an employee takes a laptop home containing hundreds, or hundreds of thousands, of Social Security numbers. If the laptop is stolen and the data is used to commit identity theft, then the company is facing a potentially catastrophic situation that can lead to class action lawsuits, regulatory enforcement actions, a drop in stock price, and most importantly, damage to customer relationships. I help companies respond to and manage security breaches, which usually involves quickly notifying affected individuals so they can protect themselves against identity theft and fraud.
|
What's next? |
A: I'm currently working on another stand-alone thriller set in a San Francisco law firm. Go with what you know, right? I don't want to say much more at this point because I'm still in mid-manuscript, so I'm not quite sure where I'm going to end up.
|
When do you find time to write? |
A: It's not easy with my job, but I usually write very early in the mornings and on weekend mornings. Riding into the city on the BART train also works for me, particularly for revisions.
|
Why not a series? |
A: Someday I'd like to try one, but I would have to find the right character that would support a series. I like writing about ordinary people thrown into extraordinary circumstances. If you have an ordinary person as a recurring character who is constantly getting thrown into incredibly perilous situations, then you can start to strain believability. It becomes a little like the Die Hard movies, where poor John McClain always seems to be at exactly the wrong place at the wrong time.
