ARI J. SCHARG is a Partner at Edelson PC and Chair of the firm’s Government Affairs Group, where he counsels governmental entities and officials on a range of policy and strategic issues involving consumer protection, privacy, technology, and data security. Known as an aggressive advocate, Ari also leverages his experience litigating hundreds of complex class and mass action lawsuits to help local governments prosecute large-scale recovery actions, including those against the pharmaceutical companies responsible for the opioid crisis. Ari serves on the inaugural Executive Oversight Council for the Array of Things Project where he advises on privacy and data security matters, Chairs the Illinois State Bar Association’s Privacy and Information Security Section, and was recently appointed by the Illinois Senate President to Co-Chair the Illinois Blockchain and Distributed Ledgers Task Force alongside Representative Michael Zalewski (21st Dist.). Ari was selected as an Illinois Rising Star by Super Lawyers (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), and received the Michigan State Bar Foundation’s Access to Justice Award (2017) for “significantly advancing access to justice for the poor” through his consumer cases. Ari regularly speaks about data security and technology at law schools and conferences around the country, and has testified before the Michigan House of Representatives Committee on Commerce and Trade about the privacy implications raised by the surging data mining industry and the Nevada Assembly Commerce and Labor Committee about the privacy implications raised by the surreptitious collection and use of geolocation data.
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