Katherine Petti focuses on complex civil litigation and trial work, especially in the area of media law, corporate governance, and artificial intelligence. Her work spans litigation to internal investigations and government investigations. Katherine’s experience includes successfully representing media companies in some of the most significant defamation cases to advance to trial in the last decade: She defended ABC News in the lawsuit filed by Beef Products Inc. in the noted “Pink Slime” case that went to trial in 2017; and she defended Fox Corporation and Fox News in the lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, which resolved shortly after the outset of trial in 2023. The judge in that case after the announcement of settlement, said of both sides, “I have been on the bench since 2010. . . I think this is the best lawyering I’ve had, ever.”
Katherine also successfully defended Fox in a multi-billion-dollar case brought against the news organization by coal industry executive and U.S. Senate candidate Don Blankenship, in which Fox prevailed on summary judgment in 2022. In 2021, Katherine also successfully represented Fox against a $250 million defamation suit brought by former attorney Michael Avenatti, prevailing on a motion to dismiss that survived appeal.
Katherine’s extensive corporate governance work includes, since November 2023, representing two former board members of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI in a variety of matters. These issues brought widespread media, investor, industry and pundit attention to corporate-board oversight and artificial intelligence regulatory issues.
Katherine also has expertise in preparing clients for congressional testimony, and, among other categories, in representing clients in employment and products liability matters, and trade-secrets litigation. She has practiced in the trial and appellate levels of state and federal courts, as well as in domestic and international arbitration proceedings, internal investigations, and government investigations. Her notable state and federal experience include all aspects of litigation and arbitration, from motions to dismiss, to fact development, through the trial stage of litigation and to the appellate level and cert-stage and merits stage of the Supreme Court.
A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Katherine graduated with honors from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Following graduation, she clerked for the Honorable Judge Raymond Kethledge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She started her work in private practice at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C.
Katherine was selected to the Los Angeles Business Journal’s “Women of Influence: Attorneys” issue in 2022 and named to the Washington, D.C. “Rising Stars” list by Super Lawyers from 2018 through 2020, and to the California “Rising Stars” list by Super Lawyers in 2023 and 2024. For her work at the Supreme Court, Katherine was part of the team named “Legal Lions” by Law360 after a win at the Supreme Court in Midland Funding v. Johnson.
Representative Experience
Though all cases vary, and none is predictive, Katherine’s experience includes:
- Defense of Fox News against a defamation claim for more than a billion dollars brought by coal industry executive and former U.S. Senate candidate Don Blankenship at the motion for summary judgment stage, which was then affirmed on appeal in 2023
- Defense of Fox News in various defamation and related claims brought by Dominion Voting Systems from 2021 to 2023
- Defense of Fox News and its on-air talent against a $250 million defamation claim brought by former attorney Michael Avenatti in 2022, securing a victory both at the motion to dismiss stage and preserving that victory on appeal
- Defense of ABC News in a defamation and product disparagement lawsuit brought by Beef Products Inc., often referred to as the “Pink Slime” case, seeking billions in damages
- Representation of Midland Funding in a case regarding the FDCPA and Bankruptcy Code, in the Supreme Court in OT 2016 (Midland Funding v. Johnson)
- Defense of a major pharmaceutical corporation in a securities class action
Recognitions
- Selected to California “Rising Stars” list, Super Lawyers, 2023
- Selected to the Los Angeles Business Journal‘s “Women of Influence: Attorneys” special issue for 2022
- Selected to Washington, D.C. “Rising Stars” list, Super Lawyers, 2018-2020, Trial & Appellate Practice
Education
- Harvard Law School, J.D., cum laude, 2013
Senior Executive Editor, Harvard Business Law Review; President, Harvard Association for Law and Business - Harvard College, A.B., cum laude, 2010
Bar Admissions
- California
- District of Columbia
- Georgia
Court Admissions
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
- U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia
- U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
- U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
- U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin
