As noted in a recent feature on her in SuperLawyers©, Beckage’s career trajectory is a testament to reinvention and innovation, which she leverages to help her clients also reinvent and innovate within their own organizations. Law firm founder Beckage focuses her law practice on innovation and technology, with a recognized focus on data security and privacy and incident response. Throughout her legal career, she has responded to numerous headline-making, national and international cybersecurity incidents and counseled organizations of all sizes.

Beckage is a frequent contributor to the global conversation surrounding crisis response, speaking at several legal and cybersecurity industry events. She also is interviewed by global media on topics related to technology, crisis response, and data security. Beckage is a Certified Information Privacy Professional, United States (CIPP/US) and Certified Information Privacy Professional, Europe (CIPP/E). She also received MIT “Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy” Certification in 2020.

Prior to her legal career, Beckage owned and led technology companies, one of which she helped lead to the sale to a publicly traded company. That telecommunications company retained her as an executive overseeing cutting-edge technical products and services and operations.

Beckage made a name for herself by leading a rapidly growing tech company in the DotCom era. Beckage and her entrepreneurial team developed cutting-edge technologies, essentially “writing the books” on new emerging programming languages. She helped lead that organization to the successful sale to a publicly traded company, where she was retained as an executive.

After Beckages’s tech company was acquired by a publicly traded telecommunications company, seeking to expend into various technical services, she was retained by that company as an executive overseeing various technology products and services.

Specifically, as Vice President of Operations she oversaw development and implementation of technical services and product lines across 11 states servicing Fortune 500 clients. She facilitated the development of new products and services, made operational improvements, and expanded on the company’s current customized internet-based offerings.

Having owned and sold a tech company during transformative technological explosion (the explosive use of internet-based technologies), and personally going through due diligence of selling a company, Beckage realized that there were very few in the legal profession that understood tech, much less the internet’s capabilities and emerging technologies. In fact, many attorneys were not exposed to or did not understand network systems, databases, and data transfers–so, Jennifer saw an opportunity. Law never seems to keep up with technology, but since she knew technology, she could try to help get ahead of applications of the law and emerging laws as it relates to tech. Thus, Jennifer went to law school. Seeing an untapped market, an opportunity to reinvent and pivot, she focused on building a tech legal practice. At this time, tech and data security and privacy-focused courses were not available, much less (yet) a global conversation.

Beckage quickly became an equity partner at a regional NY law firm that had nearly 200 attorneys and offices in eight cities. She created the firm’s Data Security and Privacy and Crisis Management Teams. When global data breaches first started to occur on a large scale, Beckage, with her unique background of law and tech, was a sought after tech lawyer. Her Data Security and Privacy Practice grew exponentially. She immediately gained national recognition for handling data security and privacy and technology issues. She also became a sought-after speaker and writer on the topic.

Beckage was one of the first classes of the annual peer-based recognition of Top Data Breach Lawyer in the United States by Cybersecurity Docket for her practice in the space (2018).

In addition to her tech and crisis counseling, Beckage also leverages her extensive business and tech background to advise clients on all aspects of business growth from product development, contracts, transactions, audits and investigations, and other matters. Entrepreneurs and founders sought her advice on how to build organizations, and she provided not just legal, but practical advice.

Following some of the largest first breaches and class actions in 2015-2017, Beckage pivitoed with the opening of a women-owned data security and privacy law firm.

Beckage is leverging her prior crisis response experience (for data breaches and for addressing past personal health struggles), to have a hyper-focused firm where she can help organizations innovate, with data security and privacy top of mind, and help executives and others who have personal and professional security privacy matters that they would like to address with counsel.

Being intimately involved in some of the globe’s largest privacy and data security events and disputes, and learning lessons from her own past personal health challenges, Beckage is determined that the the war on cyber and the measured process of innovating with tech is going to rapidly change once again.

Forecasting the rise in defense against cyber events, the evolution of technology, and opportunities to innovate, Beckage once again pivoted to prepare for the new data landscape.

The Beckage Firm was created to help organizations innovate, while adapting to a changing economic, technology, and threat landscapes.

Recognized in 2018, 2019, 2020, and again in 2021 as one of the Top 40 data breach attorneys in the United States by Cybersecurity Docket, Jennifer A. Beckage is part of the inaugural class of this award, and only one of a handful of people to earn the recognition for four years in a row.

This peer-evaluated award comes after “nominations, input from numerous senior lawyers in the field, and considerable research” to determine “the 40 best and brightest data breach response lawyers” in the country (Cybersecurity Docket). This award is in recognition of her representation of clients in some of the most significant data breach responses in the United States.

Beckage has significant data breach and privacy law experience, including representing clients in complex litigation, class actions, and internal and government investigations.

She is a regular contributor on topics of data security and privacy, information governance, and cyber security, and speaks at major industry and association events on these and other topics.

Beckage is also a Certified Information Privacy Professional, United States (CIPP/US) and Certified Information Privacy Professional, Europe (CIPP/E) as certified by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). She was one of the first law firm attorneys in upstate New York to have a CIPP certification. Once again, being ahead of the curve as today numerous attorneys and other professionals carry the certifications.

She has received an MIT “Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy” Certification, taught master data scientists at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2021, and is a regular contributor and speaker on AI and innovation topics, including data breaches.

Jennifer Beckage has spoken at universities, masters programs, law schools, private schools, and other educational institutions on data security and privacy, technology and innovation, entrepreneurship, women leadership, and supporting underrepresented classes in STEM.

In 2021, she was a professor of a masters course on data security, privacy, AI, and ethics at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has been a guest lecturer at numerous universities, including the State University of New York system and Duke University.

She is also a regular speaker on supporting underrepresented classes in STEM, encouraging entrepreneurship, and resilience in a crisis.

Beckage does not just teach, she also continues to educate herself. Beckage completed an artificial intelligence (AI) certificate program at MIT.