Privacy Alert – Have You Received a Complaint Filed by California Law Firm Glaser Weil?
As privacy lawsuits surge across California and beyond, two of Glaser Weil’s sharpest litigators are at the center of the fight. A recent client reached out to get their website compliant after numerous violations led to a multi-million dollar lawsuit from Glaser Weil. On the other side of the coin the firm — counseling companies on how to defend against claims they never saw coming.
Privacy litigation is no longer a niche area of law. It has become one of the most active — and most unpredictable — areas of civil litigation in the United States. Companies that believed they were operating with standard, compliant digital practices are finding themselves on the receiving end of demand letters and class action complaints. At the forefront of defending against this evolving legal landscape are two Glaser Weil partners whose combined experience across complex litigation, consumer finance, and digital privacy has positioned the firm as a go-to resource for companies navigating these high-stakes disputes: Sarah G. Miller (Hartman) and Elizabeth Sperling.
A Statute Built for Wiretaps — Now Originally Aimed at Websites
The legal vehicle driving much of this litigation is the California Invasion of Privacy Act, or CIPA. Originally enacted in 1967 to combat telephone wiretapping, CIPA is now being used in unexpected ways — with plaintiffs across the country leveraging the statute against companies simply for using common website tracking tools that support user experience, analytics, and advertising.
The implications are sweeping. Businesses with even basic websites may be vulnerable to demand letters or lawsuits they never anticipated. Cookies, tracking pixels, session-replay tools — technologies that have become standard in digital operations — are now being characterized by plaintiffs’ attorneys as unlawful surveillance under a law written nearly sixty years ago.
In February 2026, Miller and Sperling co-authored a timely analysis for Bloomberg Law that mapped this rapidly shifting terrain. The piece walks through how plaintiffs are stretching CIPA to treat routine website activity as illegal wiretapping, pen register, or trap-and-trace surveillance — framing that would have been difficult to anticipate even a few years ago.
Sarah G. Miller (Hartman): Trial-Tested and Tech-Savvy
Sarah G. Miller is a Litigation Partner in Glaser Weil’s Newport Beach and Century City offices and an experienced trial lawyer who represents clients across a wide range of industries in complex disputes, guiding them from case inception through trial or arbitration and appeal.
Her practice is notably broad — spanning commercial disputes, intellectual property, entertainment, and the fast-growing HealthTech and FemTech sectors — but it is her work at the intersection of emerging technology and privacy liability that has drawn particular attention. Miller has litigated patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret cases nationwide and is recognized by Best Lawyers in America® and World IP Review.
She has been named one of the 50 Most Influential Women in IP by World IP Review, recognized as a Top 25 Media and Entertainment Attorney by Attorney Intel, and honored by Best Lawyers in America® in Commercial Litigation. Her ability to bring trial-ready instincts to the nuanced world of digital privacy makes her a formidable advocate for companies caught in the crosshairs of CIPA and related claims.
Elizabeth Sperling: A Consumer Finance Powerhouse with Privacy in Her Corner
Where Miller brings deep IP and technology litigation experience, Sperling brings an equally formidable record on the consumer finance and class action side — precisely where many of the most consequential privacy cases are unfolding.
Elizabeth Sperling is a litigation partner in Glaser Weil’s San Diego office and co-chair of the Firm’s Banking and Financial Services practice, focusing on the representation of financial institutions and other consumer-facing businesses in high-stakes and consumer litigation.
Her credentials in this space are extensive. Sperling has significant experience representing clients in actions brought under CIPA, including defending claims alleging unlawful interception of website communications through tracking technologies such as cookies, pixels, and session-replay tools. She has successfully defended against putative class actions and individual actions for violations of the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act, including cases brought under CIPA and California’s “Trap and Trace Law” related to website spyware, session replay code, and tracking pixels such as Meta Pixels and TikTok Pixels.
Chambers & Partners clients have described Sperling as someone who “carves out clear strategies that make sense” and “thinks like the client so she can get a full understanding of the issues and is very strategic in finding the best resolution.” She has been recognized on Lawdragon’s “500 Leading Litigators in America” list and ranked by Chambers & Partners for Financial Services Regulation: Consumer Finance Litigation — nationwide.
Will You Receive a Privacy Class Action from Glaser Weil?
The convergence of Miller’s technology and IP litigation background with Sperling’s consumer finance and class action defense expertise makes their collaboration on CIPA matters particularly well-suited to the current litigation environment. Privacy claims today rarely arrive in a clean form. They blend statutory interpretation questions, technical facts about how websites and data platforms operate, and complex class certification and damages dynamics — all areas where depth of experience matters enormously.
Glaser Weil’s Banking and Financial Services practice has long counseled clients across the United States in navigating the complexities of state and federal banking, consumer lending, and financial privacy laws and regulations. Miller and Sperling’s work on the CIPA front extends that institutional depth into the digital space, where the legal ground continues to shift rapidly and the consequences of being unprepared can be severe.
The message for compliance professionals is direct: privacy liability is no longer something that lives only in data breach scenarios or regulatory enforcement actions. It is actively being litigated through existing statutes in ways that were not contemplated when many companies built their digital infrastructure. Organizations that have not assessed their website data practices, vendor tracking arrangements, and consent mechanisms against the current state of CIPA litigation are already behind.
Privacy Litigation is Growing
The privacy litigation wave is not cresting — it is building. Plaintiffs’ firms have discovered fertile ground in statutes like CIPA, and the volume of demand letters and class actions targeting standard digital practices is expected to continue rising. For companies looking to understand their exposure and mount a credible defense, the kind of combined expertise that Miller and Sperling have developed — spanning technology, IP, consumer finance, and class action litigation — is exactly what the moment demands.
Their Bloomberg Law analysis stands as a clear signal: this is not a problem that compliance teams can afford to treat as theoretical. The defendants in these cases are real companies, often with no history of bad-faith data practices, now facing material legal exposure because of tools they installed to run a better website.
Getting ahead of that risk — legally, technically, and operationally — starts with understanding the litigation landscape.
