This lawyer focused on publishing her technology law research
Star Kashman is a founding partner of the Cyber Law Firm. “You can form your own path, and you should,” she says. “With the emerging field of law within the digital age, young creative attorneys are needed.” (Photo by Sam Goldin)
Path to Partner is a new ABA Journal series of short profiles of lawyers who became partner at their law firms and the steps that they took to get there.
When her parents divorced, Star Kashman understood the impact that a good lawyer could have on a family. She initially wanted to be a psychologist, but Kashman, who eventually co-founded a law firm, realized that she could help clients even more if she went into law. It was at the Brooklyn Law School in New York that Kashman paved a path that would eventually propel her career.
“Everyone in law school assumes the same things—that you either work your butt off and make no money until you’re partner, and it will take forever,” says Kashman, a founding partner of the Cyber Law Firm. “Or you prioritize money and working for the enemy, and you work in BigLaw until 4 a.m., hoping to slowly go up the ranks.”
But Kashman decided to carve out her route, instead focusing on publishing her technology law research. She explained to one of her professors that she knew of a method that criminals were using to find sensitive information via Google applications called “Google dorking” or “search engine hacking.”
However, there was no caselaw written on this topic. Her professor gave her a choice: She could either pick another topic in which there was already caselaw—or she could do the harder move and write about her findings.
While daunting, Kashman spoke with judges and prominent people in the media about her work, which would soon be published.
In her cybersecurity law class, Kashman discovered a gap in federal anti-hacking laws, so she spent a few years working and putting together cases that used this advanced search technique.
“Because this information is publicly displayed, albeit unintentionally and unknowingly, there is no clarity in the CFAA [also known as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act] or even caselaw about whether accessing this sensitive information constitutes unauthorized or exceeded access,” she explains.
During the first months of her third year of law school in 2023, her paper was published in the Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts. She began advocating for better hacking legislation and tech laws, even hosting an event at her law school presenting ethical hackers who demonstrated how to log in and look at personal cameras using Google.
“I’m very passionate about cyberstalking, how people can use their tech skills to abuse others,” Kashman says.
For her, it’s personal. She has witnessed friends and family become targets of malicious online actors. She adds that she has always tried to help, developing tech skills to identify and combat their issues. If a friend had an anonymous actor harassing her, she says, she would gather technical evidence to determine the person behind the account.
And one time, Kashman says, she was harassed by a man, who decided to use fake phone number and accounts to continue getting access to her.
“I used my tech skills to gather necessary evidence of him being the user behind these accounts, so I would be prepared to escalate if necessary,” she says.
Kashman’s law school, impressed with her research, started putting her work on social media, which eventually caught the eye of Gabriel Vincent Tese, a law school alumnus who would end up co-founding a firm with her.
“He was very interested in getting to know my work,” Kashman says, explaining that Tese is a retired intelligence officer and former head of Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott’s artificial intelligence law group. “We always knew that someday maybe we would collaborate on something.”
But that would come later. First, Kashman worked at various firms, augmenting her legal tech and cybersecurity knowledge; winning an award from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; and presenting her research at events, including the first New York County Lawyers Association’s cybersecurity continuing legal education course and the ABA’s Women of Legal Tech summit.
Finally, in spring 2024, Kashman and Tese co-founded the Cyber Law Firm in Pennsylvania (though Kashman works from New York City), which focuses on cybersecurity and privacy law. And now, she and Tese are the ones responsible for promoting associates to partners. According to Kashman, the firm currently includes two founding partners and six interns, but they’re looking to bring on others soon.
Now that she’s in charge, Kashman says, she’s looking for potential partners who have technical skills, who are passionate about tech, and who are committed to working very hard.
“My partner and I will text each other late at night about a case we’re working on,” she says. “Or if we get an emergency call from a client on the weekend, we will pick up.”
And she’s not afraid to hire partners who have approached the law in an untraditional way like she did.
“You can form your own path, and you should,” she says. “With the emerging field of law within the digital age, young creative attorneys are needed.”
