JAveritt

Jessica L. Averitt

Partner
Baker & McKenzie LLP

Biography

Jessica Averitt is a partner in Baker McKenzie's Houston office.

Practice Focus

Jessica has extensive experience advising clients in the energy, health, automotive, technology, communications, financial institution, and hospitality industries regarding the ever-changing worlds of cybersecurity and data governance; incident response and crisis management; strategic business planning and complex investigation/litigation strategic planning.

Representative Legal Matters

  • Advises clients on emerging trends in cyber discovery, data privacy, cross border data transfer, information governance and strategic discovery.

  • Advises clients in multiple industries on cyber incident response strategies including table top exercises, red team exercises and crisis management.

  • Experience in conducting information-related litigation and investigations, such as breaches of confidentiality and theft of trade secret.

  • Co-lead and developed comprehensive investigation strategy for international internal investigation for global financial institution related to possible theft of trade secrets, data security and cross border data privacy.

  • Counseled large IT service provider on contractual and regulatory cyber security notice requirements.

  • Led large scale digital analysis projects for telecommunications, financial institutions, automotive, railroad and oil and gas industries.

  • Trusted advisor to leading telecommunications company on internal investigations, response to government investigations, and large complex litigations.

  • Counseled a large domestic oil and gas company in connection with civil investigations into hydraulic fracturing by the US Congress and federal and state agencies.

  • Advised a leading financial institution regarding crisis management related to a significant cyber threat.

  • Lead liaison attorney as national E-discovery counsel for major telecommunications provider.

  • Defended depositions of technical and IT witnesses in large employment class actions.

  • Prepared for depositions of key witnesses in significant shareholder litigation matters, regulatory investigations and theft of trade secret matter.

  • Managed large scale discovery in response to multiple DOJ civil investigative demands, FCC Letters of Inquiry, DOJ Second Requests and large complex litigation matters.

  • Advised clients on legal standards for preserving, collecting, and producing electronic data.

  • Advised on and assisted in drafting document retention policies to include data concerns.

Professional Associations and Memberships

  • Houston Bar Association - Member
  • American Bar Association - Member
  • The Sedona Conference WG 1 on Electronic Document Retention and Production - Member
  • The Sedona Conference WG6 on International Management, Discovery and Disclosure - Member
  • The Sedona Conference WG 11, Privacy and Data Security - Member

Admissions

  • U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas~United States (2004)
  • U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas~United States (2004)
  • U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas~United States (2004)
  • Texas~United States (2003)

Education

  • University of Houston (B.A., summa cum laude) (1999)
  • University of Texas at Austin (J.D.)

Languages

  • English