Can someone be successful in the privacy field without being a lawyer? I currently work in cyber (GRC) and touch on Privacy occasionally. When I do work in privacy I do enjoy that work more than Cyber/GRC. Just wondering if I was to pivot and do Privacy full time either at my current company or another place, how successful is someone working in the privacy field both regarding salary and job advancement?

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Yes, there are non-lawyer privacy professionals, but much of the most interesting and high paying work still goes to lawyers.

The high-end (and, to a large extent, the low-end) of the profession is dominated by lawyers, largely with corporate/big law-style backgrounds. Unlike infosec, the profession itself exists almost entirely because of the legal requirements and the legal risk associated with noncompliance. The nitty gritty of privacy work flows largely from the legal requirements, unlike infosec which is not as clearly and substantively tied to express provisions of law. Naturally, it tends to be large corporations that have the most at risk when it comes to privacy compliance, so the work tends to go not just to lawyers, but big corporate lawyers.

Now, there is absolutely still room for non-lawyers in compliance work, and that space will likely continue to grow over time. And as acceptance of non-lawyers grows, so will potential upward mobility. Indeed, there are already highly capable and respected privacy professionals who are not lawyers.

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Yes you can become a CPO, but a lot of top CPOs are lawyers in practice. Pick a handful of your favorite companies and look up their CPOs on LinkedIn. Should give you an insight into their career trajectory. Note that CPO career trajectory is never typical—vast majority of lawyer and nonlawyer privacy pros alike never make it.

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Yes you can. But as A1 states, the privacy world has been flooded with attorneys trying to find a new practice area. If you ever go to large privacy conferences like the ones hosted by IAPP, they are predominantly attended by attorneys.

There are many areas of privacy where it makes sense for companies to use non-attorney privacy resources, specifically in operationalizing the interpretations of the regulation for the company.

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Great write up C1

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Yes. I'm a successful nonlawyer in the privacy field.

Privacy is emerging; subject areas are still forming. I'm moving into the operations side of privacy engineering.

There are 180k USD jobs out here for cookie compliance.

Get free OneTrust certifications. Shortages are everywhere in privacy.

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Thank you, will take a look around.

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For reference, CPOs of the following:
Microsoft - Julie Brill, lawyer
Meta - Erin Egan, lawyer
Netflix - Mary Pothos, lawyer
Alphabet - Keith Enright, lawyer
Uber - Ruby Zefo, lawyer

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