Connell Foley LLP is pleased to announce that firm partner Karen Painter Randall has been appointed for the third time to the Cybersecurity Legal Task Force by the President of the American Bar Association (ABA). Karen was first appointed to the Cybersecurity Legal Task Force in 2017 and will continue as a member for another one-year term commencing with the adjournment of the 2019 Annual Meeting.
The goal of the Task Force is to "address issues of great importance to lawyers, [the] Association, and the public." It will be co-chaired by Ruth Hill Bro and Thomas Smedinghoff. The staff liaison will be Holly McMahon.
As Chair of Connell Foley's Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Group, Karen has extensive experience counseling lawyers and law firms, healthcare entities, financial institutions, educational facilities, transportation companies and retail clients on information security laws and regulations, and providing proactive plans to address cyber risks. She advises on all facets of information security preparedness and serves as a "breach response coach" across various industries, as well as for cyber insurance carriers. Karen also offers strategic solutions related to post-breach matters, including statutory notification requirements, class action litigation, regulatory compliance and enforcement actions, forensics investigations and remediation, and provides security awareness training for employees.
Karen has also received ABA presidential appointments to the Standing Committee on Lawyer’s Professional Liability. She is a founder of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Cybersecurity Legal Task Force, and in 2018 created the University of South Carolina School of Law's Cybersecurity Legal Task Force, one of the first Cybersecurity Legal Task Forces for a law school in the southeast.
In May 2019, Karen was named by NJBIZ as a winner of the inaugural “NJ Digi-Tech Innovators Awards” and was the only attorney among the 34 honorees selected for this award.