Will Daugherty has come a long way since growing up in Alexandria on South Hampton Drive. The guy who won the Class 4A state doubles tennis title in 1996 as a junior with Alexandria Senior high teammate Patrick O’Quin now owns a lofty job title: Head of Cybersecurity, U.S.
He’s the United States cybersecurity chief for his Houston Norton Rose Fulbright law firm.
The 1997 ASH graduate got his Bachelor of Science degree in international trade and finance at LSU in ’01. Then he got his professional law degree, cum laude, from Tulane in ’05. Now, he’s one of America’s foremost leaders in data protection, privacy and cybersecurity.
“On a daily basis,” he said in a phone interview last week, “I am the first call a lot of organizations make when they have a cyberattack. I’m a crisis manager; I guide executives and managers through all the aspects of managing cyber security.” He often works with FBI and law enforcement agencies to solve the crises, and he sometimes helps prep organization leaders to testify before Congress.
Most of us, in our working years, look forward to an occasional day when we have a light schedule that’s not too stressful. There’s no such luxury for Daugherty, who virtually runs to the burning building while everyone else flees.
“Every day is what would be the most trying day an organization has ever gone through,” Daugherty said. That means Will has multiple jobs – consultant, psychiatrist and psychologist. He tries to bring calm to the storm. Meanwhile, he and the FBI and other law enforcement types try to identify and neutralize the “threat actors” – a term to identify individuals or groups that maliciously intend to create risk or damage to digital systems, networks or data. The main threat actors, Will aid, come from Russia, China and North Korea.
Little did he think, when he was a prep tennis star, being raised by his mother and stepfather, Janie and Pat Ryan, that he would have such a future. What he didn’t realize, too, while he was at LSU was how crucial would be a part-time job he took. He took an IT job with the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (now the Department of Energy and Natural Resources).
“That’s when I began to understand about computers and networking and such,” he said. “That’s where I got my data foundation.”
During his junior year at LSU, he did an internship at Disneyworld, where he met his wife, Heather, then a fifth-year senior at Arizona State. Their marriage, initially planned for 2005 in New Orleans, was delayed because of Hurricane Katrina until 2006 in Natchitoches. They have three daughters — Adelle, Amelie and Emma. Adelle (senior) and Amelie (freshman) are both in high school and Emma is in 7th grade.
Despite his busy schedule, he said he enjoys quality family time.
“We travel internationally, we’ve had some great trips,” he said, noting all three daughters play club soccer and the younger two are cheerleaders. “Also, I work from home 100 percent of the time, even though our firm has one of the biggest offices in downtown Houston.” He also does considerable work with European and Asian firms. “My hours are so crazy,” he said, “I have no time to travel back and forth to work.”
Daugherty built his resume with such jobs as senior counsel for a major video game retailer and handling complex cross-border corporate litigation. before a “pivotal moment” in 2015, joining the Houston firm of Baker & Hostetler. There he achieved partner status while anchoring his practice around data security. This is when he began to gain his full stride into cyber law, acquiring some high-profile clients. That led to his eventual joining of the Norton Rose Fulbright firm in 2020.
He hasn’t lost touch with his hometown, though. He visits friends and “second family” members maybe once a year, and he has fond memories of Alexandria attorneys such as Brenner Sadler and Charlie Weems, role models in the profession who first got him wanting to become a lawyer.
He said he learned valuable lessons from his tennis experience.
“It taught him a lot about what it takes to achieve goals, like discipline,” he said. “I was fortunate to have my best friend (Patrick O’Quin) to bring me around and teach me things. Tennis, as any sport would, taught me when you have a goal, you have to work as hard as possible, more than the other players, right, hitting more serves after practice or working to improve a particular shot, pushing yourself as hard as you can.”
Remember that part-time IT job he had at LSU? Will pushed himself as hard as he could in that field. Drawing on that experience, he works closely with incident response teams to quickly discover a potential security incident.
It seems a billion miles from home sometimes, but he always keeps his hometown close to his heart.
“The older I get, the more appreciation I have for where I grew up,” he said, “and how much it’s been a part of who I am. Even though I left Alexandria a long time ago, I’m thankful for Alexandria and growing up there. It’s where I learned from the people there how to relate to people and staying grounded. They are good people being good to each other.
“That foundation has really carried me and made a difference that I wouldn’t have gotten at a lot of other places,” he said. “It has a special place in my heart.”
As for his stressful, high-profile job, he said, “There’s never a dull day, that’s for sure. And I love it.”