Elizabeth George

Non-Resident Senior Fellow

Beth George is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at NYU School of Law. She is a partner in the Silicon Valley Office of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, where she leads the strategic risk and crisis management practice. In this role, she 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.

Previously, she was a partner in the San Francisco office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where her practice focused on the representation of companies preparing for and facing major crises. She also led the firm’s cybersecurity team, including providing advice on legal challenges faced by companies when preparing for and responding to cybersecurity breaches. 

In 2021, Beth served as the Acting General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Defense during the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration. Previously, Beth served as Deputy General Counsel to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), where she advised senior leadership on legislative, policy, and oversight matters. 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. Prior to that role, 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.

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 an affiliate at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).

Beth received her J.D., Order of the Coif, from NYU School of Law. Following law school, Beth served as a law clerk at the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, and then to Chief Justice Theodore A. McKee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Follow her on Twitter @_Beth_George.