Katherine Hughes is the firm’s Pro Bono Counsel & Director, working with a dedicated team of attorneys and professional staff to manage the firm’s award-winning pro bono practice.

Katherine maintains an active caseload of pro bono work focused primarily on advising nonprofit organizations, small businesses and social enterprises. For her pro bono work on behalf of nonprofits and social enterprises, she has been recognized by Lawyers Alliance for New York, named a Trailblazer by The New York Law Journal, and profiled by Reuters. 

She was an associate at the firm from 2011 to 2015, working on domestic and international financing transactions for corporate borrowers and public-private partnerships.

During her years at the firm, Katherine was an active participant in the pro bono program, primarily working with nonprofits on incorporation, tax exemption and related matters, and with small businesses on their varied legal needs. She also participated in Cleary’s pro bono externship program at Lawyers Alliance for New York, where she provided business legal services to New York nonprofits.

From 2015 until rejoining the firm, Katherine was the general counsel of a $20 million nonprofit focused on providing insurance, educational and patient safety services to the nation’s leading network of women’s reproductive health care providers.

Katherine rejoined the firm in 2017 as Pro Bono Attorney and became Pro Bono Counsel & Director in 2021.

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Selected Activities

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  • Adjunct Faculty Member, Fordham Law School
  • Co-Chair, Non-Profit Organizations Committee, NYC Bar Association, 2022

  • Member, Association of Pro Bono Counsel
  • Member, Non-Profit Organizations Committee, NYC Bar Association, 2019-present
  • Past Board Member, Island Kids, Inc., 2015-2020
  • Past Member, Pro Bono and Legal Services Committee of the NYC Bar Association, 2015-2018
  • Past Member, International Human Rights Committee, NYC Bar Association, 2010-2013
  • Fellow in International Human Rights Law, Fordham Law School, 2009-2011

Publications

  • “Creatively Redressing the Criminalization of Marijuana Use,” PBI’s Pro Bono Happy Hour podcast (2024)
  • “Pro Bono During the Pandemic,” Law Practice Today (2021)

  • “A Home in the City: Women’s Struggle to Secure Adequate Housing in Urban Tanzania,” 34 Fordham International Law Journal 788 (2011), co-author L. Wickeri.
  • “Operation ‘Drive Out the Trash’: The Case for Imposing Targeted United Nations Sanctions Against Zimbabwean Officials,” 76 Fordham Law Review 323 (2007).

Events