By Andrew Cohen
It doesn’t take long for recent UC Berkeley Law grads to climb the ranks and make a meaningful impact early in their wide-ranging careers. We periodically highlight standout alumni who are shining across various practice areas in profiles that amplify what drew them to their current work, what they enjoy most about it, and their path to success.
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Arsen Kulyk LL.M. ’22 remembers the conversation vividly: November 2021, in the kitchen, talking with his wife Julia about whether to invest their hard-earned money into UC Berkeley Law’s LL.M. Program or starting a renovation in their Lviv, Ukraine, apartment.
“Luckily, we voted unanimously for investing in ourselves and I applied to Berkeley — literally a life-changing decision,” he says.
A couple months later, just as Kulyk had begun the remote portion of the executive track program, he received his F-1 visa from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. A couple days later, the embassy closed because Russia was amassing troops at the Ukrainian border.
His employer Eleks, a fast-growing Ukrainian technology company, advised its personnel to relocate abroad temporarily. Kulyk, his wife, and their daughter went to Poland, but packed for his summer LL.M. session in Berkeley just in case.
“We left Ukraine on Valentine’s Day, and 10 days later Russia started its full-scale invasion,” he says. “We never planned on relocating from Ukraine as our lives there were easy, careers prosperous, and the future looked bright and exciting before the war. It all changed overnight and now, three years later, we call the Bay Area home.”
Kulyk’s mother, in-laws, and much of his extended family remain in Ukraine.
“I worry about them and about the future of Ukraine every single day. It is an emotional toll that never disappears,” he says. “I find myself checking the news multiple times throughout the day, hoping for signs of safety and stability, and often confronted with new tragedies. At the same time, I’ve had to teach myself to focus on the life we are building here in the U.S., for my wife, for our daughter, and for myself.”
A new sense of purpose
Craig Hawkins knew Kulyk would adapt seamlessly to his new transition. Then senior director and associate general counsel of privacy at the AI data cloud company Snowflake, he recalls returning from vacation and walking in a bit late to a privacy team meeting — with a new attorney on hand — discussing a complicated topic.
“Arsen is one of only a few attorneys I’ve had the pleasure of working with in my career who was immediately impactful upon joining a legal team,” Hawkins says. “He was asking incredibly insightful questions and seemed to have a good understanding of both the privacy legal issues and company-specific business issues at stake. I was quite shocked as I think it was only his second or third day at the company. If I didn’t know he had just started, I would have sworn he had worked there for years.”
After graduating from law school at his hometown university, Kulyk spent over nine years at Eleks, developing a specialization in technology-driven commercial negotiations and privacy law. He also obtained privacy certifications in Amsterdam shortly before the EU General Data Protection Regulation came into force in 2018, positioning him to advise clients and Eleks on some of Europe’s earliest compliance efforts.
“Over time, my interests gravitated toward intellectual property, contracts, and privacy — areas that sit at the very core of modern technology law,” Kulyk says. “My professional focus aligned with my personal conviction that privacy is a fundamental human right and that technological innovation must be balanced with protections for individual freedoms.”
He also developed a side practice advising a range of technology businesses on tech transactions, privacy, and intellectual property issues, and viewed an LL.M. degree as the logical next step. Kulyk chose the program for two main reasons: its uniquely flexible executive track designed for experienced practitioners which blends remote coursework with a single intensive summer term on campus, and it offered a specialized Law & Technology Certificate that perfectly aligned with his career trajectory.
Curating a course load heavily focused on advanced technology law subjects, including Advanced IT Contracts, Video Games Law, Privacy Law, and Intellectual Property, Kulyk says “they went far beyond theory and were full of practical insights that I continue to apply in my daily work.”
Beyond the substantive professional benefits, Kulyk made meaningful connections with other practicing lawyers from around the world and maintains friendships and professional networks with colleagues in Japan, Canada, Singapore, China, Brazil, and across Europe. Set up the charity Freedom, Then Peace with classmate and fellow Ukrainian Dmytro Tymoshchenko ’22.
“The most meaningful part of my time in the Executive Track LL.M. program was the people I met and the connections I was able to build,” he says. “I came to law school at a moment when Ukraine was facing extraordinary challenges as Russia started its full-scale invasion, and I was struck by how much my classmates, professors, and the broader community cared, not only about me as an individual, but also about Ukraine and its future.”
Multi-level expertise
As senior corporate counsel in Snowflake’s privacy department, Kulyk works on new products, innovative technologies, and evolving issues in tech, privacy, and AI. His work demands deep command of privacy and data protection frameworks worldwide: understanding what the laws mean, how regulators interpret and enforce them, the positions and concerns of major customers in various industries, and how to translate all that into tangible and actionable policies, standards, and arrangements at the corporate level.
“It requires me to adapt quickly, think strategically, and address novel questions where there may not be well-established answers yet,” he says. “I have the opportunity to contribute to projects and negotiations at the very frontiers of technology and data protection, and to see my expertise applied in areas that genuinely shape the future of the industry.”
His rare dual expertise in privacy law and commercial negotiation helps him steer complex tech deals that involve navigating international data transfer rules and embedding them into contracts. He also advises on cross-border data transfers, regulatory inquiries, product assessments, and the implementation of new compliance frameworks.
Kulyk speaks five languages, which proves useful in dealing with European matters and gaining trust in cross-border collaborations. While his career arc shines, he remains worried about his mother, in-laws, and other extended family who remain in Ukraine — and the nation itself.
He still misses Ukraine profoundly, and admits to occasionally wondering if Europe might have been an easier landing place. But the overwhelming kindness Kulyk and his family have received in the Bay Area consistently reassures him that they made the right decision.
“The U.S. remains one of the world’s few true lands of immigrants, a country where people are welcomed and valued for what they contribute,” he says. “That openness matters greatly to us. It has given us not only a safe place to live, but also the chance to pursue meaningful work, to contribute to something larger than ourselves, and to help build a future defined by opportunity rather than fear.”