Education & Practice History

Vanessa Zimmer, Esq., CIPP-US

Growing up, I wanted to be a basketball player and a doctor (like Dr. J, as I used to say), then an actress, then a musician. Instead, I went to law school to be a public defender and came out a commercial real estate associate.  Almost two decades later I’m a Certified Information Privacy Professional and I’m vying for a career as a professional writer. Life is funny like that.

I’m a tried and true privacy nerd but throughout my career, I have gained experience with labor and employment matters, commercial transactions, business counseling, privacy & data protection, mergers & acquisitions, advertising & marketing, sweepstakes, contests & promotions, social media, human resources, e-commerce, consumer protection, anti-bribery/corruption, direct sales & multi-level marketing, international expansions, emerging business models, and real estate.  Many of these areas were not within my original job descriptions but became part of my practice as my skills and rapport with business partners developed.

It’s been a fun and unexpected development to see how twenty years of lawyering feeds into my relatively new (but all-consuming) passion for screenwriting. It was a real aha moment to hear one of my non-lawyer colleagues describe my legal job as an intensely creative undertaking. I had never thought of it that way but she’s so right! Being a good lawyer is all about seeing different stories in your head and helping your client get to the best one. Digesting massive amounts of info and turning it all into something concise and actionable is how I approach the law and storytelling.

I am proof that an old dog can learn new tricks while still perfecting the old ones.

Bar Admissions

-Illinois, 2006 (currently inactive)

-California, 2011 (as active as a lawyer can be)

Education

-J.D., Northwestern University School of Law, 2006, cum laude
-B.A., Italian & English, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2003, High Honors & Phi Beta Kappa

Other

Certified Information Privacy Professional-U.S.

I don’t do social media but you can find me on LinkedIn.