Lecturer Bios
Mary Kavaney, Esq,
Ms. Kavaney serves as the Chief Legal and Administrative Officer for the Global Cyber Alliance. Her responsibilities include strategy, personnel, legal and work with the cyber risk task forces. Prior to GCA, Ms. Kavaney worked at the Center for Internet Security. She developed relationships with law enforcement and other partners around the state.
From 2007 to 2015 Mary served as the Assistant Deputy Secretary for Public Safety for the New York State Governor’s Office working towards the passage of the state’s first anti-human trafficking law, all crimes DNA law and New York’s gun control law, the Safe Act.
Prior to working in the Governor’s Office of Public Safety, she was appointed as General Counsel at DCJS, the Division of Criminal Justice Services and for eight years she ran the Poughkeepsie Regional Office for the New York State Attorney General. Ms. Kavaney served as an Assistant District Attorney for four and half years at the Orange County District Attorneys’ Office.
Gail Gottehrer, Esq.
Gail Gottehrer is the Founder of the Law Office of Gail Gottehrer LLC. Her practice focuses on emerging technologies, including autonomous vehicles, connected vehicles, AI, the Internet of Things, biometrics, robots and facial recognition technology, and the privacy and security laws and ethical issues associated with the data collected and used by these technologies. She is one of the few defense lawyers to have been involved in the trial of a class action to verdict before a jury.
Gail teaches Law for Knowledge Innovation at Columbia University, and is a member of the Advisory Board for Rutgers University’s Leading Disruptive Innovation Program, and a Fellow at the Center for Legal Innovation at Vermont Law School.
Gail is a member of the State of Connecticut’s Task Force to Study Fully Autonomous Vehicles. She is also a member of the New York State Bar Association’s Task Force on Autonomous Vehicles and the Law, and Co-Chairs the Task Force’s Regulatory, Safety, Law and Policy Subcommittee. Gail serves as Co-Chair of the New York State Bar Association’s Technology and the Legal Profession Committee, and is a member of the New York State Bar Association’s Transportation Law Committee. She is Chair-Elect of the American Bar Association’s TIPS Automobile Litigation Committee, and Co-Chair of the National Association of Women Lawyers’ IP & Technology Affinity Group. She is also a Member of the IEEE P7014™ Working Group that is developing a Standard for Ethical Considerations in Emulated Empathy in Autonomous and Intelligent Systems.
An internationally recognized thought leader, Gail served as a peer reviewer for Interpol’s Framework for Responding to a Drone Incident and presented a session on data privacy and security at Interpol’s Car Cyber Threats Expert Group Meeting in London in September 2019. She is also a member of the ITU’s recently created Focus Group on AI for Autonomous and Assisted Driving. Her recent publications in the autonomous vehicles space include two articles published by the American Bar Association titled, Can States Steer Clear of Liability for Accidents Involving Autonomous Vehicle Technology?, and The Intersection of the Fourth Amendment and Level 5 Vehicle Autonomy.
Gail was selected as one the Profiles in Diversity Journal’s 2017 Women Worth Watching in STEM and one of the Connecticut Technology Council’s 2016 Women of Innovation. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Murray C. Goldman, in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas. Gail is admitted to practice in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.
