Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties (OPCL)Leads the Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties (OPCL) breach response program, which requires providing expert-level guidance to Department components throughout the incident and breach response process, building the Department’s response capabilities through driving process improvement, and providing highly-tailored legal, privacy & cyber risk management guidance to Department leadership during a Major Incident or Significant Cyber Incident investigation.Responsible for driving automation and program enhancements within the Privacy Risk Management process, specifically by working with a cross-cut, multi-functional team to optimize existing privacy assessment templates to enable automation integration with the Department's primary risk management tool.Served as OPCL’s process lead (from late 2022 to mid-2023) and was responsible for assembling the Data Protection Review Court (DPRC), the second tier of redress established within DOJ OPCL under Executive Order 14086, as part of the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. Constructing this Article II court with limited resources required the use of the operational, technical, and legal knowledge gained from both the private and public sectors, such as utilizing certain Lean Six Sigma practices when drafting the Court's planning documentation, to ensure OPCL leadership could easily explain the DPRC’s design considerations to other stakeholders.

Served as in-house compliance counsel for Verizon Business Group, the Business to Business (B2B) division of Verizon, focusing on cybersecurity, privacy, Artificial intelligence, automation and risk management issues.- Provided full-spectrum information security legal guidance to the business, from drafting provisions governing product security in contracts, to augmenting processes to better manage legal and other enterprise risks.- Developed the VBG InfoSec Contracting Playbook, which reformed the contracting process for information security provisions, by assessing VBG’s baseline security and privacy controls and contracting provisions, updating existing provisions and drafting new ones to achieve compliance with regulatory and policy requirements, and designing fallback provisions that met what security and product teams could achieve while enforcing the conditions upon which they could be offered by deal teams. Launched dedicated training resources to assist deal teams with using the Playbook, and executed a communications plan to ensure deal teams knew where to find and consult the Playbook. Developed governance mechanisms so that new provisions and fallbacks could be developed and added to the Playbook’s in a significantly faster and more transparent way.- Developed Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) "Drafter's Guide" for CCPA compliance effort to significantly facilitate a system or program owner's owners ability to document risks and the compliance team's ability to prioritize compliance resources by having better PIA responses.- Led the EU GDPR legal compliance effort through coordination, analysis, and process improvement to augment existing information governance practices. For instance, updating VES’ overarching data retention strategy to match GDPR’s “Necessary” requirement by creating a flexible data retention template. Recognized with a special award by VES’ General Counsel for substantially mitigating data privacy risks within a single year.

• Supported Federal clients with their data privacy compliance needs by drafting Privacy Impact Assessments (PIA), assisting procurement teams with managing privacy risks, conducting trainings on PIA drafting and PIA template optimization, and supporting all aspects of data breach response. • Prescribed policy reforms to mitigate cyber threats effectively and ensure regulatory compliance.

• Assisted clients with remediation of privacy, HIPPA/HITECH, GLBA, and internal information security policy compliance gaps.

Represented clients as part of the Data Privacy and Security (DPS) team. Was responsible for advising on practices that would prevent data breaches, and assist clients in drafting breach response plans. Served on the cybersecurity rapid response team, which responded to clients’ needs across the country, deploying within moments of a breach. Was a contributing editor to LeClairRyan’s Data Privacy and Security Blog, Cybersquire. Public Policy. Worked with LeClairRyan's government relations and political law teams to assist clients with matters such as registering, incorporating and operating political non-profit 501(c)(4) and (c)(3) organizations; developing and “vetting” fundraising efforts to comply with state, federal and local rules; and developing strategies for resolving political legal issues .Civil Litigation. Assist in civil litigation matters including minority shareholder disputes, e-discovery, corporate contract disputes, and personal injury cases. Handled a civil matter from inception to trial, which resulted in a successful defense of a $50,000 claim. Employment Law. Analyzed case law from various state, federal and international jurisdictions for cases involving age, sex and other forms of discrimination; drafted, edited and reviewed reporting guidelines for a community health service; researched issues related to a wage and hour disputes; and assisted multiple litigation teams in determining the impact of local court rules on filing deadlines.

Wrote, edited and reviewed memoranda, treatises and research results for junior and senior attorneys on issues of medical insurance reporting requirements, Virginia rules of evidence, and H1-B immigration applications. Compiled affirmative defense case law for a Virginia HOA litigation matter. Researched and compared trade secret and proprietary information protection laws in several jurisdictions.

Served as a Summer Law Clerk for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.Analyzed and briefed executive legal staff on requests by state agencies to file amicus briefs to state Court of Appeal, including property rezoning/conservation easement cases. Researched and briefed senior legal staff of changes in California parole law.Pre-evaluated parole applications for certain life offenders being considered by the Governor's office

Co-Founder and Chief Sales Officer of MJA Web Design LLC, a low-cost high-quality web design firm based in Fredericksburg, VA. MJA Web Design combined strong talent from a variety of backgrounds and reputation management research to give small businesses and political organizations a competitive edge. Became limited partner in January 2010. MJA Web Design LLC was sold to a federal contractor on January 1st, 2012, allowing the company to broaden it's range of potential clients while maintaining the same middle-market advantage and experienced quality known to clients nationwide.

Bankruptcy Law

• Accepted through a competitive admissions process amongst recent college graduates and graduate students from across Virginia, in order to learn more about state governance and administrative practices.• Worked under the Secretary of Administration, Viola O. Baskerville, due to interest in her work with Minority Business Development.• Developed speaking points & Power Point presentations for the Secretary, which honed ability to research, and expanded speaking and audiovisual presentation skills.