Christina Lee of Keker Van Nest &Peters LLP secured several defense wins in a wave of privacy litigation targeting new technologies, including high-profile class actions in the past year for companies like LinkedIn and Google , earning her a spot among the cybersecurity and privacy law practitioners under age 40 honored by Law360 as Rising Stars.
The biggest cases she’s worked on lately:
In recent years, Lee served as co-lead counsel for LinkedIn in a series of successful defenses in healthcare privacy cases, securing dismissal of two class actions.
Lee said that LinkedIn and other major tech companies have been targeted by a wave of class actions that connect to older statutes, such as the California Invasion of Privacy Act, or CIPA, and the federal Video Privacy Protection Act, or VPPA.
“These cases try to stretch these old statutes to cover technologies that surely state legislators could not even have contemplated at the time that they passed these statutes,” Lee said.
In one matter, LinkedIn was accused of improperly collecting sensitive health data from its customers’ websites. Mounting a defense focused on LinkedIn’s clear disclosures and data collection practices, Lee secured a dismissal by showing that the plaintiff had consented to the data collection practices that were alleged in the complaint.
Her proudest moments as an attorney:
In Lee’s privacy litigation practice, one of her proudest moments was leading Google’s defense in a 2024 class action data privacy lawsuit accusing the tech giant of violating CIPA to track user activity on third-party applications. Advancing a consent-based argument grounded in Google’s privacy disclosures, Lee secured dismissal of the case that was later affirmed.
In Lee’s pro bono work, she focuses on protecting people in immigration law. She previously represented immigrant families whose children were forcibly separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border during the first Trump administration. Lee sued the federal government for damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act and secured a settlement.
“Getting to work at a firm like Keker Van Nest & Peters allows me to do both the type of high stakes, exciting cutting-edge business litigation in the privacy space, but it also allows me to take on impactful pro bono cases for clients who are brave enough to stand up for what’s right,” Lee said.
Why she’s a cybersecurity and privacy attorney:
Lee said that practicing in cybersecurity and privacy matters has something to do with “serendipity.” She has worked on several consequential privacy class actions since joining Keker, one of the top tech litigation trial firms in Northern California.
“That was a fortuitous moment for me to be assigned to work on one of those cases my first day at the firm because right then, nearly 10 years ago, is when the industry was beginning to witness this exponential rise in privacy class action litigation, outside of the classic data breach context,” Lee said. Once Lee started working in the practice area, she found it interesting.
What motivates her:
Lee said two factors motivate her. The first is her clients, which Lee said are companies at the frontier of today’s technological innovations.
“These clients are people who inspire me to think creatively about how to advance their interests,” Lee said.
The second factor is that Lee said she has always been a curious person and that type of curiosity has extended into learning about new technologies. This has helped her learn how to explain technical concepts in ways that make sense to lay audiences such as judges and juries.
How the cybersecurity and privacy practice will change in the next 10 years:
Over the next few years, Lee expects an acceleration in the rapid proliferation of artificial technology and a relative absence of clear appellate authority on these issues.
“We’ll see an even more pronounced increase in privacy class action litigation that attempts to, again, wield old statutes and laws and try to apply them to new technology, especially in the AI space,” Lee said.
–As told to Steven Lerner. Editing by Patrick Reagan. Law360’s Rising Stars are attorneys under 40 whose legal accomplishments belie their age. A team of Law360 editors selected the 2026 Rising Stars winners after reviewing more than 1,100 submissions. Attorneys had to be under 40 as of April 30, 2026, to be eligible for this year’s award.
Reprinted with permission from Law360. All rights reserved.
