A partner in the Litigation Department, Katherine serves as Vice Chair of the firm and Co-Chair of the firm’s Global Artificial Intelligence Group. The Artificial Intelligence Group provides litigation services as well as expert guidance to clients in anticipating regulatory developments, mitigating legal exposure, and implementing industry best practices in the AI space. Katherine, who previously served as a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York and as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, regularly handles sensitive high technology investigations, litigation and advisory work in the areas of artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and blockchain.
Experience
Katherine advises clients on legal issues relating to technology, including artificial intelligence, the digital environment, high-speed trading and content distribution, big data, and intellectual property. Katherine has led sensitive investigations involving the DOJ, FTC and other U.S. and foreign regulators, and complex, high-stakes litigation spanning numerous substantive areas including artificial intelligence, Web3 and digital assets.
Katherine was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2011 as a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York, serving seven years on the bench and presiding over several thousand criminal and civil cases. During her tenure on the bench, Katherine served as a member of the Judicial Patent Task Force for the Southern District of New York and presided over several dozen patent cases.
Industry Awards and Recognition
Katherine has been recognized for her work in technology and artificial intelligence by numerous industry publications. Most recently, Chambers USA 2025 ranked her Band 1 in artificial intelligence, Chambers Global 2025 named her a "Global Market Leader" in artificial intelligence, and Lawdragon included her among their 2025 “500 Leading Global Entertainment, Sports & Media Lawyers.” The New York Law Journal announced that Katherine was a 2023 individual Innovation Award winner for her work in AI, and the Financial Times shortlisted her as a 2023 Innovative Practitioner finalist. She has received Benchmark Litigation's Hall of Fame Award [2020] and has been named to the publication's “Top 100 Trial Lawyers in America” [2022 - 2025] list and “Top 250 Women in Litigation” [2019 - 2025] list. She has been recognized as a Best Lawyer by The Best Lawyers in America since 2010 and is currently recognized for Antitrust, Litigation – Antitrust and Litigation – Intellectual Property. In 2022, she was named Best Lawyers' New York City “Lawyer of the Year” for Antitrust law. In 2019, she was included in Crain's New York Business's list of “Notable Women in Law.” The American Lawyer recognized Katherine as one of 10 district court judges to watch [2012], and Law360 named her one of the 10 most influential recently appointed judges [2015]. She has also received additional recognitions from The American Lawyer [Individual Innovation Award Winner, 2023], Global Competition Review [named to “40 Under 40” top competition practitioners worldwide, 2005], IP Law & Business [recognized as “Top 50 Under 45” in 2008], and The Legal 500 US [listed as a leading practitioner in antitrust and IP from 2022 – 2024]
Katherine also maintains an active pro bono practice, where she was recognized with the Jewish Children’s Museum’s Ari Halberstam Memorial Award in 2023. Katherine was part of the team that brought the first lawsuit against the gun manufacturers that made the gun used in the 1994 attack on Brooklyn Bridge that killed 16-year old Ari Halberstam, to whom the museum is dedicated.
Writing/Speaking
Katherine is a co-host of the award-winning Paul, Weiss Waking Up With AI podcast, which consists of more than 100 episodes and delves into the latest AI developments, regulations and use cases. She has authored three books on AI entitled When Machines Can Be Judge, Jury and Executioner: Justice in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, Is Justice Real When "Reality" is Not: The Construction of Ethical Systems in Virtual Worlds and the forthcoming Of Another Mind: Navigating a New Social Contract with Superintelligent AI. She has appeared on the PBS show, NOVA, on algorithmic bias and artificial intelligence; and she authored the “Artificial Intelligence” treatise chapters for Business & Commercial Litigation in New York State Courts (Fifth Edition, 2021) and Business & Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts (Fifth Edition, 2021), as well as a chapter on emerging issues in copyright law and artificial intelligence in The Law of Artificial Intelligence and Smart Machines (First Edition, 2019). She is also a regular technology columnist for the New York Law Journal, having written the article “Cutting Through the Mess: What Does AI Really Mean for Lawyers?” in 2023 and in 2020 earned a distinguished legal writing award from The Burton Awards for her article “The Holographic Judge.”
As she is a frequent speaker, Katherine has had numerous keynote addresses at events hosted by the American Bar Association, the New York City Bar Association, the Federal Bar Association, the National Judicial College, the New York State Judicial Institute, The Future Society and UNESCO, among others, on topics related to artificial intelligence and the metaverse. She was a panelist on “The Path Towards an Enforceable EU AI Act,” at The Athens Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence and the Rule of Law [2022] and “Choosing Wisely: The Challenge of Interim Measures in International Arbitration,” at New York Arbitration Week [2022]. She has spoken numerous times on behalf of the National Judicial College, given keynote speeches on these issues before all of the New York State judges and trained judges on these issues internationally, including “The Transforming Role of Judicial Operators in Upholding the Rule of Law in the Age of AI,” at UNESCO and SMART Africa’s Virtual Inter-regional Training Program [2022]. She has been an adjunct professor of law at NYU School of Law for ten years as of 2026, where she co-teaches a course on Quantitative Methods and the Law.
Boards and Other Professional Affiliations
Katherine is active in numerous charitable and professional organizations. Among others, she is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation (ABA), a member of the ABA Taskforce on Law and Artificial Intelligence, co-chair of the New Jersey Court Systems AI Initiative and currently serves on the board of trustees of Choate Rosemary Hall, a boarding school in Connecticut.
