Thank you for your interest in our services as a privacy consultant, attorney/mediator, expert witness or professional trainer in privacy issues. The following will give you a brief background of Mariís expertise.

Mari is an attorney and the author of the Identity Theft Survival Kit (Porpoise Press, Inc.1998, 2000), the audiocassette series ìIdentity Theft Prevention and Survivalî, the book From Victim to Victor: A Step by Step Guide for Ending the Nightmare of Identity theft With CD (Porpoise Press,), the booklet Privacy Piracy (Office Depot, 1999).  She has also written a chapter in Protection Security, and Safeguard (CRC, 2000) and the Introduction for Consumer Financial Privacy (LRP Publications) as well as a chapter in the 2003 State Bar of California Business Section Book. She is also the author of another new book Safeguard Your Identity: Protect Yourself with a  Personal Privacy Audit (Porpoise Press 2005) to be released in 2004  with the new edition of From Victim To Victor with CD as  pledges for the PBS Television program she hosted entitled : Identity Theft Protecting Yourself In the Information Age. She has provided oral and written testimony and has published many articles regarding privacy and identity theft issues,

In December 2004, Mariës seminar for PBS Television ìIdentity Theft Protecting Yourself in the Information Ageî produced by Santa Fe Productions will be viewed nationwide on all PBS stations.  Mariís publications shall be used as pledge items.

Additionally, Mari has testified before numerous congressional committees on privacy and identity theft in the California legislature as well as the United States Senate. She assisted in the passage of the identity theft statutes in California (Penal Code Section 530.5 and 530.6) as well as the federal Identity Theft Assumption and Deterrence Act, 18 USC 1028. She testified on numerous bills dealing with privacy and The Fair Credit-Reporting Act. One such bill became law in California in 1998 under Civil Code Section 1785.16 (dealing with blocking fraud information on credit reports). Mari testified at a US Senate Judiciary Field Hearing for Senator Diane Feinstein for two of her bills; The Identity Theft Prevention Act of 2000, and the Social Security Protection Act of 2000. She also testified in the US Senate on July 18, 2002 on Identity Theft for the Committee on Aging, and in the US House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform on May 15, 2003 regarding Identity Theft and Peer to Peer File Sharing.

On May 4, 1999, Mari was summoned to the White House (in Washington DC) by the Secretary of the Treasury to give a speech on Consumer Privacy and Identity Theft with the President, the First Lady and the Secretary of the Treasury. This speech was featured on CSPAN and was attended by members of Congress, the financial industry, and privacy advocates. You may see the photos at www.identitytheft.org under ìPhoto Galleryî.

As a leading expert on identity theft and privacy, Mari was featured on 48 Hours, (two different segments) Dateline (Three different Segments), Connie Chung Tonight; A& Eís Investigative Reports with Bill Curtis, NBC and ABC Nightly News, Frontline. CNBC, Lifetime Discovery Channel, NBCís The Other Half, The OíReilly Factor, and many more national and local television shows. Additionally she was featured in Your Money Magazine, U.S News & World Reports, the American Bar Association Journal, Good Housekeeping, Womenís World, the National Notary Modern Physician, the Wall St. Journal, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Daily News, the Orange County Register, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, and numerous other national periodicals. She has been interviewed on over 200 radio shows dealing with privacy and identity theft issues.

Additionally many law enforcement agencies and other governmental agencies have consulted with her, and the Association of Credit Bureaus in Washington DC interviewed her at length with regard to how to more effectively deal with identity theft victims. She served on an Identity Theft task force with the Los Angeles County District Attorneyís office, and she is a Sheriff reserve, in professional services on the High Tech Crime Unit of the Orange County, Californiaís Sheriff Department.

Mari has been privileged to present numerous speaking engagements and workshops on privacy and identity theft. Some of these included: Key Note Speaker on the Platform with Attorney General Jane Reno at the High Tech Crime Conference in San Diego the International InfoWar Conference; The American Society for Industrial Security (Orange County,) The Northern California Fraud Association (Monterey), the Odyssey Conference (Palm Desert, Ca.) The Consumer Law Conference (San Diego), The California Consumer Advocates Conference; The California Alliance for Consumer Education (Los Angeles) Suffolk Law School Key Note Speaking (Boston); the Economic Crime Summit in St. Louis (Missouri); the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners; the Association of Fraud Investigators; The Los Angeles DAís Office Gil Garcetti (Press Conference regarding the new laws dealing with identity theft); the California Association of Private Investigators; The American Society of Industrial Security (Detroit, MI), The Northern California Fraud Association,  Chase Manhattan Bank (NYC),The Orange County  Ca. Sheriffs Department, The  Annual Conference of  the Ohio Chiefís of Police (Columbus); The Annual Credit Union Fraud Loss Conference( Las Vegas); Los Angeles Sheriffsí Department, The Global Privacy Summit (Washington DC), The Federal Trade Commission Summit on Identity Theft, The Privacy Officerís Association (Washington DC) ;   the Social Security Administration Summit on Identity Theft, The Houston Office of the FBI,  Hartford Insurance Company; The City of Santa Clara California; The National Consumer Lawyers Conference (San Diego)The Experian Fraud Conference (Atlanta); The Veterans Administrationís Security by Design Conference (Orlando); The California Credit Unionís Annual Convention;  Merrill Lynch; Printrak/ Motorola Corporation; CPP North America ; The State Bar Annual Convention (several years) and dozens of other entities throughout the nation.

Mariís under-graduate degree is from the University of Wisconsin (Madison), her masterís degree is from Hofstra University in New York, her law degree is from Western State University College of Law, and her post-law school training in Negotiation is from Harvard Law School (Certification in Negotiation), McGeorge School of Law (Certification in Mediation) and Pepperdine Law School (Certification in Negotiation). She currently is a Professor of Negotiations at the University of California, Irvine.

Mari has served as a privacy consultant for Office Depot, Fellowes Corporation, ACE Insurance, Image Data Inc., Recall Corporation; Merrill Lynch; Chase Bank; The Association of Credit Bureaus, Privista, Hartford Insurance, Travelers Insurance, CPP North America; McKesson, Inc., The FBI, The OC Sheriff, and numerous other entities. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Identity Theft Resource Center. Mari also sits on the advisory board of the State of California Office of Privacy Protection. She is a consultant for the National Office of Victims of Crime. Ms. Frank also consults as a privacy advisor for various entities.  Her office advises clients with regard to privacy policies, information protection practices and legal issues with regard to privacy and identity theft

As a former victim of identity theft herself, Mari vigorously researched the issues of privacy and identity theft.  Mari has served as an expert witness and mediator on several identity theft and privacy cases. As a practicing attorney/mediator and former litigator, she is familiar with the process of trial, however presently she limits her practice to negotiation, mediation services, consulting and training. She is a certified trainer for the State Bar of California for Continuing Legal Education for attorneys, has been a law professor and has taught at several colleges and Universities as an adjunct professor. A great deal of her time is spent on privacy and identity theft issues helping victims, companies, governmental agencies and law enforcement across the nation.

 Please visit the Identity Theft Prevention and Survival web site at www.identitytheft.org has over 70 pages of free information. You may also find information about Mariís mediation and training at www.marifrank.com.

Thank you for your interest in our services, and your commitment to privacy issues.