Beth George

Practice Areas

Beth George leads the strategic risk and crisis management practice.

Experience

Beth has deep and wide-ranging expertise from her background working at senior levels across the U.S. federal government, Beth served as Acting General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) during the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration, where she advised the Secretary of Defense on high stakes matters, including issues related to Iran, China, and the drawdown in Afghanistan. From 2011 to 2016, Beth served in various roles for the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), including as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General, Counsel to the Office of Law & Policy, and as an Honors Attorney and Attorney-Adviser in the Office of Intelligence. On detail from the DOJ from 2015 to 2016, Beth served in the White House as Associate Counsel in the Office of the White House Counsel, where she provided legal and strategic advice to senior White House officials regarding high-profile oversight, investigation, and litigation matters.

She also led responses for the office on cybersecurity and national security matters, including the response to the largest U.S. government data breach at the Office of Personnel Management. Before serving as Associate Counsel at the White House, Beth was a Professional Staff Member and Counsel to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from 2014 to 2015, also on detail from the DOJ. In this role, she was the sole attorney serving on the committee's bipartisan, end-to-end review of intelligence collection activities for all components of the U.S. intelligence community.

Work Highlights

Based out of Silicon Valley, Beth’s strategic risk practice focuses on the representation of companies preparing for and navigating the toughest situations, from cybersecurity breaches and internal investigations to bet-the-company regulatory inquiries and congressional investigations.

Beth regularly advises boards of both private and public companies on risk management and governance, including through hosting table-top exercises to prepare for high-risk events, like cyberattacks. Her practice has included representing a large company facing high-profile congressional investigations and litigation regarding its data security practices, investigating alleged nation state insider threats at a leading tech company, and advising a public company in a high-profile breach, which resulted in a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation and criminal charges.

Beth has lectured at the UC Berkeley School of Law on surveillance law and technology, at Stanford University's law and international policy schools on cyber law and policy, and at Stanford Business School on cybersecurity for executives. She serves as a senior adjunct fellow for the New York University School of Law's Center for Law and Security and as an affiliate at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).