Karen Painter Randall, partner and Certified Civil Trial attorney at Connell Foley LLP, chairs the firm’s Cybersecurity, Data Privacy and Incident Response Group. Considered a national thought leader, she has extensive experience advising clients on cyber risk mitigation and resiliency, privacy laws and regulations and incident response. The Connell Foley Team has been designated an authorized NetDiligence Breach Coach.

Karen provides counsel across all industries and organizations of all sizes on proactive measures to help identify, protect, detect, respond and recover from cyberattacks, focusing on ransomware, business email compromise insider and third party attacks. She drives strategic solutions on how to safeguard a business’s sensitive data, using security risk assessments, policies and procedures, security awareness training, incident response plans, tabletop exercises and cyber liability insurance. Karen has handled hundreds of incident response matters each year since 2010 for carriers and uninsured businesses. She leads the response effort, working with the client and leading vendors to contain/eradicate the attack, manage crisis communications, evaluate legal, contractual/regulatory notification requirements, manage internal workforce messaging, and prepare consumer notification, effectively utilizing resources to reduce exposure. Karen’s clients span multiple industries – financial services, healthcare, public entities, education, transportation and retail, including lawyers and other licensed professionals.

In addition, Karen oversees Connell Foley’s 24/7 Breach Response and Crisis Management Team, which provides immediate counsel designed for crisis management, preserving critical assets, mitigating harm to the business’s reputation, and limiting legal liability. Post-breach representation also includes defense of class action litigation, regulatory enforcement actions and investigations.

Karen received three presidential appointments to the American Bar Association’s Cybersecurity Legal Task Force, and was named the Task Force’s Private Sector Liaison. She founded/chairs the New Jersey State Bar Association Cybersecurity Legal Task Force and Institute. Additionally, Karen was selected by the University of South Carolina School of Law to lead its Cybersecurity Legal Task Force and serve as Director of its annual National Cybersecurity Institute. She also chairs the USLAW Network Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Group. Among her many honors, Karen has been named by NJBIZ as a “Leader in Law” for Cybersecurity and as a “Digi-Tech Innovator,” and by ROI-NJ to its “Influencers: Law” list for E-discovery/Cyber.