Jennifer Coughlin

Jennifer A. Coughlin is a Founding Partner of Mullen Coughlin and its Managing Member, guiding the Firm in its commitment to provide effective and efficient data privacy and security legal services and develop, maintain and grow client and partner relationships. She focuses her legal practice solely on providing organizations of all sizes and from every industry sector in first-party data privacy and security incident response and third-party data privacy defense legal services.

Jenn has counseled hundreds of organizations in investigating and responding to data privacy and security incidents compromising protected data and network and system security, such as ransomware attacks, business email compromises (BECs) and other network intrusions, among others. She works closely with various organizational and third-party incident response stakeholders including cyber insurance claims teams; forensic investigation and data mining firms; law enforcement; and business partners. Once the incident is contained and the nature and scope is identified, she relies on her knowledge of state, federal and international laws, as well as industry-specific guidance and regulations to assist the victim organization with identifying and complying with legal obligations stemming from the incident.

While Jenn has represented organizations from virtually every industry group, she has a particular focus on organizations within the healthcare and life sciences; financial services; hospitality and entertainment; retail/e-commerce; and professional services industry groups. She also represents these organizations with follow-up inquiries related to data privacy and security incidents by state, federal and international regulatory agencies, including state attorneys general; state insurance and health departments; the Federal Trade Commission (FTC); and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (HHS-OCR).

In addition to the first- and third-party legal services she provides, Jenn also assists organizations with pre-incident Advisory Compliance services. She routinely leads tabletop exercises and other training efforts for client’s employees, management and Board members. She also aids in data privacy and information security policy and procedure development, including the development of Incident Response Plans (IRPs).

As the Firm’s Managing Member, Jenn leads the 115+ Mullen Coughlin attorneys in the provision of exceptional data privacy and security legal services and the management of client and third-party vendor relationships. She also, in collaboration with the Firm’s equity members and department chairs, oversees the development and implementation of legal, administrative and organizational strategies.

Jenn is a frequent speaker and collaborator at industry, client and legal conferences and events. She is often sought after by organizations to present valuable information regarding incident response and data privacy to their teams and clients. In turn, she has developed strong relationships with cyber insurance carriers and brokers, industry thought leaders, third-party incident response partners and law enforcement.

Prior to founding Mullen Coughlin with John Mullen, Chris DiIenno and Jim Prendergast (deceased) in 2016, Jenn was a Partner at a full-service law firm in their Data Privacy & Cybersecurity practice group.