Karen’s Data Privacy & Data Security practice involves advising clients on lowering risk associated with using and storing information across jurisdictions. Karen advises companies of all sizes regarding cross-border transfer and information governance issues arising in the US and the world, and particularly in the EU. Karen is CIPP/E certified under the IAPP certification scheme for privacy professionals with regard to European data privacy laws. She has advised regarding GDPR compliance, including structuring and implementing processes and GDPR programs. Karen counsels clients with regard to best practices and company policies dealing with processing and transfer of personal data of employees and customers, as well as preparing for and responding to data breaches. Representative experience includes:
- Advising a large medical device manufacturer with attention to protected health information issues
- Addressing a data breach by a military defense contractor of multi-jurisdictional employee health information
- Counseling a large international banking conglomerate regarding remediation and retention requirements addressing voluminous hard copy and electronic data, including sensitive personal customer and employee information across multiple jurisdictions
- Handling breach notifications to state agencies and defending against related state actions from plaintiffs in response to data breach of personal health information
- Critical member of a National E-Discovery Counsel team to standardize case responses and increase defensibility of litigation practices for large multinational bank
Karen’s E-Discovery/Information Governance practice is based on:
- Assisting numerous Fortune 500 corporations across a number of industries (including health care, financial services, retail, telecom, commodities, and manufacturing) by structuring and implementing information governance programs addressing records retention, legal holds, electronic communications, privacy issues, and social media, and related issues.
- Assisting clients with information governance issues relating to prevention of or responses to a data privacy breach, and counseling clients regarding various records management, litigation readiness, data security, and data privacy matters.
- Providing clients with employee training for implementation of various records-management and data security initiatives.
- Regularly addressing privilege and data privacy issues arising from the collection and production of large amounts of electronic and hard copy documents in large-scale litigation, governmental agency investigations, international disputes, and class action suits
Karen’s Complex Litigation practice focuses on insurance recovery and complex commercial disputes, as well as financial litigation and toxic torts. Karen has assisted clients with responding to civil suits in numerous areas, including breach of contract, product liability, antitrust, tax, trademark infringement, environmental law, and false advertising. A sampling of Karen’s prior cases includes:
- Representing financial institutions as corporate policyholders against insurers in breach of contract and bad faith disputes for coverage
- Achieving a significant settlement on behalf of an international life sciences company in case against the Department of Justice involving billions of electronic and paper records and issues of statistical sampling, for $175 million in claims
- Winning a multi-million dollar jury verdict for a hedge fund investment firm in a defamation case
Karen’s pro bono contributions include assisting domestic violence victims in obtaining emergency protection and restraining orders. Karen also drafted state legislation around strengthening penalties for convicted violent sexual predators of children.
Karen also has a background in corporate finance and capital markets, with a focus on securities. From 2013 into the present, Karen has been a key team member in negotiating and implementing a series of innovative complex settlements with mortgage insurers, involving over 10 billion dollars in mortgage insurance claims and requiring highly negotiated agreements with dozens of counterparties.
