Karissa L. Smith is an Associate in Mullen Coughlin’s Advisory Compliance practice. She devotes her practice to counseling organizations across industries in internet, technology and data privacy and information security law. She works closely with organizational stakeholders – including management teams, legal teams and IT teams – to understand an organization’s business and data practices. Using that information, she analyzes risk profiles, advises on legal and regulatory frameworks and develops legally- and regulatory-compliant policies and procedures to help mitigate the chance of a data privacy and security incident. And, should one occur, alleviate any legal, regulatory, financial and operational effects stemming from the incident.

Karissa has experience analyzing organization’s data privacy and information security obligations under the various U.S. state comprehensive data privacy laws, including but not limited to, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)/California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), as well as assisting in executing such obligations. She is also well-versed in federal data privacy laws and trends in their enforcement, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act.

Karissa was a Law Clerk at Mullen Coughlin before being admitted to practice. She researched and prepared memoranda on client issues related to cyber insurance, data broker laws, third-party vendor agreements, consent management and artificial intelligence (AI).

Prior to joining Mullen Coughlin, Karissa was a Clinician at the Brooklyn Law Incubator & Policy Clinic. There, she counseled socially-virtuous tech startups on business organization, intellectual property and data privacy obligations – emphasizing a privacy-by-design approach.

Outside of her practice, Karissa volunteers as a Mentor Attorney with Legal Outreach and is an ESL instructor. She is also conversational in Spanish.