Marc Zwillinger is the founder and managing member of the

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

–based data privacy and

information security Information security is the practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks. It is part of information risk management. It typically involves preventing or reducing the probability of unauthorized or inappropriate access to data ...

law firm ZwillGen. Zwillinger has been active in the field of Internet law on issues such as encryption, data security, government access to user data, data breaches, and fantasy sports.

Career

Marc Zwillinger founded Zwillinger Genetski LLP (now ZwillGen PLLC), a boutique law firm specializing in data protection and information security, in March 2010. Prior to founding ZwillGen, Zwillinger was a partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal in the firm's Internet, Communications & Data Protection Group where he had created the Internet, Communications and Data Protection Practice Group (originally called Information Security and Anti-Piracy). Zwillinger worked for the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of Law of the Unite ...

in the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section as a trial attorney from 1997 to 2000. Before entering the DOJ, Zwillinger was a litigation associate for

Kirkland & Ellis Kirkland & Ellis LLP is an American multinational law firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1909, Kirkland & Ellis has been the largest law firm in the world by revenue since 2017 and, as of 2025, is the seventh-largest by number ...

from 1995 to 1997. Zwillinger started his career clerking for the Honorable Mark L. Wolf of the

United States District Court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district. Each district cov ...

, District of Massachusetts from 1994 to 1995.

Education

Marc earned his bachelor's degree from

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...

in 1991, and received his law degree graduating magna cum laude from

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

in 1994.

Work with Apple

Zwillinger has represented

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

in several cases, including those brought under the 18th century All Writs Act involving government access to user data. In 2015, Zwillinger, representing Apple, contested unlocking an iPhone 5S belonging to a defendant accused of selling drugs in New York. Most notably, in 2016, Zwillinger represented Apple in the ''Apple vs San Bernardino'' case where the government tried to compel Apple to unlock the personal iPhone recovered from one of the terrorists in the San Bernardino attack. The case itself was later dropped.

Work with Yahoo

In 2008 Zwillinger represented

Yahoo! Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...

over the government's efforts to force Yahoo! to comply with "surveillance orders and other types of legal process in national security investigations." Of the experience, Zwillinger said that he was proud to be one of the "lawyers who represented Yahoo in its historic challenge to the government's surveillance program in the

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), also called the FISA Court, is a U.S. federal court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to oversee requests for surveillance warrants ag ...

("FISC") and the Foreign Intelligence Court of Review ("FISCR")."

Service

Zwillinger is one of five ''amici curiae'' appointed to serve to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ("FISC"); a position stipulated under the

USA Freedom Act The USA Freedom Act (, ) is a U.S. law enacted on June 2, 2015, that restored and modified several provisions of the Patriot Act, which had expired the day before. The act imposes some new limits on the bulk collection of telecommunication meta ...

. Amici serve staggered terms, with Zwillinger slated to serve a four-year term.

Awards

From 2007 through 2015, Zwillinger has been ranked in Chambers & Partners USA as a leading lawyer in his field of Privacy & Data Security.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zwillinger, Marc Lawyers who have represented the United States government 1969 births Living people Tufts University alumni Harvard Law School alumni People associated with Kirkland & Ellis