Grace A. Braun-Fales is an Associate in Mullen Coughlin’s Incident Response practice group. A competent and experienced legal and compliance professional, she services as Breach Counsel to organizations from all industry sectors who have experienced, or are currently experiencing, a data privacy and security incident. She handles a wide variety of incidents including ransomware attacks, business email compromises (BECs), inadvertent disclosures and other instances of unauthorized network intrusions. Throughout the course of her investigation, and with the support of external incident response collaborators, Grace counsels her clients on their legal and/or regulatory obligations, including notification, stemming from the incident and the organization’s response. She also responds to regulatory investigations and follow-up inquiries on behalf of her clients relating to data privacy and security incidents.

With a J.D. in Health Law from Quinnipiac University School of Law, Grace is well-versed in the data privacy and security-related laws and regulations pertinent to the healthcare and life sciences industry sector, including U.S. federal laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act). She also has a deep understanding of the investigative process from the U.S. Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights (HHS-OCR) – the federal agency that oversees compliance with HIPAA, the HITECH Act and other healthcare-related laws and regulations.

Prior to joining Mullen Coughlin, Grace provided insurance coverage support as an Account Manager for a nationwide insurance agency. Prior to that, she worked as a Contract Investigator with the HHS-OCR handling investigations related to HIPAA compliance and violations of civil rights.

As a law student at Quinnipiac University School of Law, Grace was the Executive Managing Editor of the Quinnipiac Health Law Journal, a member of the Health Law Society and President of the Trivia Club. She received her B.A. in Communications & Entrepreneurship from Temple University.