Katie D. Franklin

Katie Franklin is a fierce advocate for her clients and a pragmatic one. Katie focuses her practice on complex business disputes in state and federal courts, including contract litigation, commercial torts, fraud, post-judgment enforcement, and multi-jurisdictional matters. She advocates aggressively when litigation is required and works just as hard to avoid it when that better serves her clients. Either way, her clients receive advice grounded in their circumstances and business needs. She is fluent in all aspects of federal litigation and discovery, including emerging questions of privilege and evidentiary issues involving the use of artificial intelligence tools.

Prior to entering private practice, Katie spent four years as a judicial law clerk in the U.S. District Courts, watching federal litigation unfold from the inside across hundreds of cases. That experience gave her a precise understanding of how federal judges evaluate arguments, approach procedural issues, and see cases develop before anyone sets foot in a courtroom. In addition to sharing that perspective with her clients, she serves as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, where she teaches Federal and Multistate Litigation.

That background shows up in her work. Katie has drafted winning discovery motions in federal court and defended clients against overreaching discovery demands from well-resourced opponents. She has defeated motions to dismiss, secured a default judgment on behalf of a rural substance use treatment provider against a business associate who took advantage of it, and used careful analysis of commercial documents to position clients for favorable settlements. Her clients range from large multinational corporations to small businesses that needed someone in their corner. Across all of them, Katie is known for being communicative and for the kind of attention to detail that matters most when the stakes are high.

When not wielding her litigator’s pen, Katie is most at home when she is traveling with her family to somewhere she has never been before. Her love of travel reflects the same instinct that makes her effective as a litigator: a genuine curiosity about how things work and a willingness to figure out unfamiliar terrain.