Clark Walton is the principal forensics and cybersecurity expert for Reliance Forensics. He is a licensed North Carolina attorney, an EnCase Certified Examiner (EnCE), and a Cellebrite Certified Mobile Examiner (CCME).

Walton holds a Mathematical Sciences (Computer Science Option) degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. Walton is a former cyber threat analyst and technical project manager for the Central Intelligence Agency, having served there from 2000 to 2005. In that role, Walton has briefed at the White House and provided written intelligence analysis to high-level consumers including the Director of the FBI, the Attorney General of the United States, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Walton is a former adjunct law professor at the Charlotte School of Law in Charlotte, NC, where he has taught courses in Evidence and Cyber Crime and has served as an Adjunct Graduate Thesis Advisor in the UNC Charlotte Department of Criminology, primarily in the area of search and seizure of mobile cellular devices.

From 2011 to 2014, Walton sat on the American Bar Association Advisory Committee on Law and National Security, where he was published several times in recent years on issues dealing with the intersection of technology and national security law and data security. Walton has taught CLE courses on federal criminal computer laws and government authority for digital surveillance and has been featured on local NPR and CBS affiliates discussing issues ranging from Facebook privacy to recent government “leak” cases. Walton frequently speaks to bar associations and other legal affinity groups, as well as technical trade groups such as local affiliates of the ISSA and the North Carolina Technology Association (NCTA).

Walton is also an accomplished attorney, having been named the American Bar Association’s National Outstanding Young Lawyer for 2012-2013. He previously worked as an associate for the international law firm of Mayer Brown LLP and has served as both an assistant district attorney in Mecklenburg County, NC and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Western District of North Carolina. As a prosecutor, Walton took well over 150 matters to trial. Walton has provided legal testimony in approximately 20 cases, and submitted affidavits in dozens of others. As Reliance’s principal, he has overseen over 650 forensic investigations. He is also a contracted forensic instructor at the National Computer Forensic Institute, a state/federal partnership located in Hoover, Alabama.

A more complete CV for Walton is available upon request.