INQ Consulting

Managing Principal and Co-Founder

Owner and operator of a legal and management consulting firm specializing in the development and delivery of privacy consulting services to public and private sector clients.

Principal Consultant

INQ Law

Partner

University of Toronto

Co-teaching the Privacy and Data Governance course in the Global Professional LLM program.

Adjunct Professor

University of Windsor Faculty of Law

Instructor for the inaugural Privacy Law in Canada course.

Sessional Instructor

Cancer Care Ontario

Directed Privacy and Access Office for multi-billion dollar Provincial agency, tasked with ensuring privacy of personal health information of Ontarians under its prescribed statuses under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004, and compliance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Accomplishments include:

Led drafting and ensured adherence to Data Sharing Agreements, resulting in increased compliance with terms by Informatics department and streamlining of process.

Managed relationship with external stakeholders with respect to privacy and access, including IPC, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, ICES, CIHI, POGO, hospitals, and other data partners.

Strengthened governance and accountability by establishing a Privacy Risk and Compliance managerial function, establishing privacy governance bodies across the organisation, and developing performance reporting for both privacy services as well as privacy office performance.

Director, Privacy and Access

Chief Privacy Officer (Acting)

Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority

Chief Of Staff

Courtyard Group

Led the operations of the Access to Care (ATC) Portfolio Office, which involved directing the work of other Portfolio Office resources, providing strategic direction to ATC Director, creating and coordinating the creation briefings and presentations, liaising with key stakeholders,  risk management, and ensuring visibility into procurement across the ATC Portfolio.  Primary focus: ER/ALC Information Strategy.  
Co-facilitated a strategic retreat with the Executive Directors of the 14 CCACs to set the foundation for a new eHealth strategy for the OACCAC
Managed a capacity review of the HSAP Division of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to assess the capacity of the Division to deliver on key priorities of the government, the Minister, the Deputy Minister and the HSAP Assistant Deputy Minister over three years – resulted in the delivery of a roadmap of priority objectives for the Assistant Deputy Minister
Managed the identification of future needs and assessment of gaps in services/programs for the Ontario Regional Cancer Programs - final report outlined actionable recommendations to advance the progress of the regional cancer programs across Ontario 
Led the development of an organizational review of SIMS at UHN, presenting practical advice to senior executives 
Selected to work directly with Managing Partner to develop corporate strategy for an international organization with over $30M in revenue 
Conceived and implemented a contract management process and delegation policy for an international consulting
Helped manage risks of a growth organization through the development of a Privacy Policy.  Acted as Deputy Privacy Officer, supporting Canada, the US and the UK
Led the annual operational planning process of an international company, managing all senior partners in the creation of their client account plans, budgets, and targets
Coached and mentored junior analysts on leadership development and solutions to address specific client engagements

Consultant

-	Contributed to the research and writing on an edited volume on health and human rights
-	Collaborated with a team of lawyers in the development of a skills building workshop for the 2006 International AIDS Conference, which was well-received by participants
-	Annotated recent case law and developed materials for the national and International approaches to Reproductive and Sexual Health Law class at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, which continues to be used

Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Fellow

Heenan Blaikie LLP

	Conducted research regarding privacy issues, actively participated in corporate transaction closings, summarized contracts, reviewed scripts and films for copyright and trademark infringements, participated in due diligence processes, reviewed corporate by-laws and minute books, and translated contracts from French to English
	Investigated human rights issues in labour and employment law; authored papers regarding the duty to accommodate, globalization and international trade agreements, summarized case law for newsletters, drafted termination letters and researched memos analyzing legal issues such as insubordination, fraud, strikes and lockouts, pension benefits and occupational health and safety
	Wrote memoranda on topics including the enforcement of oral contracts, quantifying damages for loss of vision, and various issues under the Employment Standards Act
	Drafted settlement letters, assignments of copyright, and reviewed shareholder agreements and leases

Articling Student

CTV News

Played an integral role in a major transaction by managing the acquisition of documents, preparing the data room, while supervising the performance of, and contributing to, the due diligence process
Researched memoranda including issues regarding the scope of PIPEDA

Summer Student

I make privacy program management simple

Samara is a results-oriented strategic privacy leader, lawyer and consultant, who leverages operational privacy leadership experience into practical strategies for program and project success. Samara is the founder of Drawbridge Consulting.

For Drawbridge, privacy is our business. We believe that “privacy” means individual control over decisions made about data, not complete secrecy. We ask the right questions. 

We understand the importance of good governance and criteria-based decision-making about personal information. We know that strong practical organizational privacy practices reduce risk. We enable access to data using privacy best practices for both private and public sector clients, from IT implementations that help your company’s efficiency to research and innovation technologies that improve health outcomes. 

Samara can be contacted at samarastarkman@drawbridgeconsulting.com
Http://www.drawbridgeconsulting.com

Samara Starkman

TELUS Health | TELUS Santé

This is not just data, these are real people's lives. My job is to track our privacy, security, patient safety, and service obligations and ensure that TELUS Health products live up to these standards. This spans regulatory, contractual, and audit-related requirements. SOC2, ISO13485, and ISO27001 ongoing compliance activities.

Principal, Compliance

Compliance-as-a-service counsel to TELUS Health managing privacy, security, and service commitments to healthcare providers across Canada. Management of SOC2 controls and audits.

Consultant, Compliance

Small Law

Business and privacy lawyer. Operated as a sole proprietor offering affordable legal services to small and medium-sized enterprises. Primarily served BC-based technology firms with an emphasis on the SaaS, software development, engineering, and digital marketing industries. Nothing fancy, just business, casual. Service domains included:
-Corporate Law: incorporations, business restructuring, corporate maintenance
-Commercial Law: services agreements, partnerships, 
-Privacy Law: privacy policies, regulatory advice, incident response
-Information Security law: terms of service, incident response
-Intellectual property: IP licensing, IP strategy

Business Lawyer

Skunkworks Creative Group Inc.

As Senior Digital Advisor, I was responsible for:
-supporting account managers;
-strategy and implementation of legal marketing campaigns; 
-advising on website development & UI;
-advising website traffic growth (SEO/SEM); and
-advising on social media campaigns.

Senior Digital Advisor

Skunkworks is a Vancouver marketing firm, advertising agency + website developer. We create brands and grow business for law firms and legal professionals.

As Technical Director, I was responsible for overseeing all technical matters within the agency including:
-Web Development & Maintenance
-Website Security
-Website Analytics
-Client Reporting

Technical Director

Appropriate Legal Technology

As Principal of Appropriate Legal Technology I help set-up new law firms and modernize existing firms. This work spans workflow updates, legal automation, IT, marketing, and financial operations. I am a certified consultant with Clio, CosmoLex, uLawPractice, Amicus Attorney, and Filevine. I offer on-boarding, training, document automation, and software integration services.

InputHealth (Acquired by TELUS Health)

InputHealth is a cloud-based electronic medical record platform. I worked as contract corporate counsel and privacy officer for InputHealth. This includes negotiating and drafting commercial agreements, managing privacy compliance efforts, and responding to privacy-related inquiries.

Legal Counsel & Privacy Officer

Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Researching the reputations of Court of Appeal Judges in England & Wales for the Centre for Corporate Reputation. As part of a large data set, judges were ranked according to signals in downstream citations. With reputation being something to someone, judges' reputations were presented by legal subject, through time.

Researcher

Blurr Design Inc.

Blurr Design Inc. is a BC-based apparel company. Born from a climbing heritage, Blurr aims to provide product that facilitates building recreation into busy lives by ensuring our product offers no-nonsense technical features and fabrics blended with progressive, urban styling.

As Corporate Counsel: I was responsible for:
-corporate maintenance
-licensing matters
-employment matters and
-outsourcing and manufacturing agreements

Corporate Counsel

Global Relay Communications Inc.

At Global Relay, I worked with the sales and business development teams offering compliance-driven hosted services (collaboration and message archiving) to an international customer base.  Customers were primarily located in the US financial services sector.

As associate corporate counsel, my responsibilities included:
-Managing accounts for contract renewals, product demos and sales to both existing and prospective customers;
-Responded to customers on legal questions relating to privacy matters, data retention requirements (e.g. broker dealers, registered investment advisers), HIPAA rules, eDiscovery rules, and associated regulatory requirements;
-Managed export control requirements for encryption products;
-Assisted with patent litigation matters; and
-Aided customers' audit & eDiscovery requests.

Associate Corporate Counsel

Jeremy Hessing-Lewis Barrister & Solicitor

I worked as a sole practitioner for a single client on corporate maintenance matters as well as on an acquisition by share purchase.

Sole Practitioner

McMillan LLP (then Lang Michener LLP)

Articled at McMillan LLP's (then Lang Michener LLP) Vancouver office. General rotations through employment, venture, technology, and M&A practice groups. Experience also included securities filings, insurance defense, and collections matters.

Articled Student

J.D | M.Sc. | CIPP/C | CCSK.  I am a Canadian business lawyer with with a focus on information security and privacy. I primarily work with SaaS companies in highly regulated legal and healthcare industries. I have been working at the intersection of law and technology since 2008, with experience spanning private practice and in-house roles. 

I hold degrees in computer science, management information systems, and law. I am a practising member of the Law Society of British Columbia and hold professional certifications as a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/C) as well as a Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK).

Much of my work spans the alphabet soup of contractual, regulatory, and audit-related compliance obligations. In particular, I help build organizational capacity and provide internal audit management for SOC2, ISO 27001, and ISO 13485 (medical devices) standards. I also help navigate privacy and security regulatory obligations across jurisdictions. 

Specialties: SaaS compliance, privacy law, information security law, legal automation, technology law, legal knowledge management, data breach mitigation, legal marketing, cyber security, data loss prevention, Internet governance, baking pies, beekeeping

taplio

The Battle

Samara Starkman

Jeremy Hessing-Lewis

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