Katherine Maddox Davis is a litigation associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
She represents corporate clients in high-stakes disputes with consumers, shareholders, and foreign governments. Her pro bono practice is focused on state and federal criminal defense. Katherine has been recognized by the 2023 and 2024 editions of Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch® in America for Appellate Practice.
Outside of court, she publishes and speaks on international jurisdictional disputes, often with human rights implications. Her analysis has been featured in law reviews and Lawfare, and she is a regular contributor to the ABA International Section’s Year in Review. She serves as vice chair for Rule of Law on the ABA International Courts and Judicial Affairs Committee.
Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, Katherine clerked at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
She received her law degree, with honors, from Emory University School of Law. She was elected editor in chief of Emory International Law Review and received the W. Richard Smith Founder’s Award for Writing Excellence and the Robert Beynart Award for Professionalism and Ethics. As a law student, Katherine interned with then-Justice Harold Melton of the Georgia Supreme Court, with civil rights prosecutors at the U.S. Department of Justice, sex trafficking prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia, and war crimes prosecutors at the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Prior to law school, Katherine spent a year assisting sex trafficking prosecutors in Kolkata, then earned a Master of Science in Contemporary India from Oxford University. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, magna cum laude, from Auburn University’s Honors College, where she was the Morris W. Savage Pre-Law Scholar from 2006 to 2010. Katherine is the 2020 Auburn University Honored Alumni Award recipient.
Speaking Engagements
- “Domesticating International Criminal Law,” American Society of International Law online symposium, December 2021
- “India’s Identity in International Court,” South Asian University, New Delhi, India, February 2020
- Auburn University Honors College Freshman Induction, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, September 2019
- “Procedural Challenges and Strategies in State-to-State Proceedings Before the ICJ and ITLOS,” Leiden University’s Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands, May 2019
- Oxford School of Global and Area Studies Careers Panel, Oxford University, May 2019
Publications
- Australia Maintaining Its Permanent Seat on the ICJ, 56 ABA/SIL YIR 57 (2022)
- International Courts: International Court of Justice, 56 ABA/SIL YIR 208 (2022)
- Procedural Challenges and Strategies Before the ICJ and ITLOS: The Indian Experience, in International Procedure in Interstate Litigation and Arbitration: A Comparative Approach (Cambridge University Press 2021)
- Merits (India Sees Partial Victory Before ICJ in Jadhav), 54 ABA/SIL YIR 152 (2020)
- India Permits Capital Punishment for Rape of Female Children, 53 ABA/SIL YIR 607 (2019)
- India Recalibrates its Bilateral Investment Treaties, 53 ABA/SIL YIR 150 (2019)
- World Court Grants India’s Petition for Stay of Execution, 52 ABA/SIL YIR 629 (2018)
- Marshall Islands’ Disarmament Cases Backfire, Lawfare (Oct. 20, 2016)
- The Nuclear Zero Lawsuits, Lawfare (Mar. 31, 2016)
- Hurting More Than Helping: How the Marshall Islands’ Seeming Bravery Against Major Powers Only Stands to Maim the Legitimacy of the World Court, 25 Minn. J. Int’l L. 79 (2016)
- Promise Despite Overreach in Marshall Islands v. United States, 30 Emory Int’l L. Rev. 2063 (2016)
- I, Too, Sing America: Customary International Law for American State and Federal Courts’ Post-Kiobel Jurisprudence, Guided by Australian and Indian Experiences, 29 Emory Int’l L. Rev. 119 (2014)
Capabilities
Credentials
Education:
- Emory University - 2015 Juris Doctor
- University of Oxford - 2012 Master of Science
- Auburn University - 2010 Bachelor of Arts
Admissions:
- District of Columbia Bar
- Virginia Bar
Clerkships:
- US Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit, Hon. Rhesa H. Barksdale, 2016 - 2017
- USDC, Eastern District of Virginia, Hon. Claude M. Hilton, 2015 - 2016