Katharine brings to her law practice considerable international experience. In 2012, Katharine supported the Legal Resources Centre of South Africa in its challenge to the proposed “Protection of State Information” bill; she also contributed to the preparation of the first comprehensive text on media rights in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a project supported by Internews. In 2011, as part of an international team, Katharine represented the Media Legal Defence Initiative, Media Rights Institute, and Index on Censorship in their intervention before the European Court of Human Rights in a case involving the free expression rights of Azerbaijani youth activists; she also assisted in drafting comments submitted on behalf of several leading U.S. media companies to the British Ministry of Justice and the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Draft Defamation Bill regarding proposed libel law reforms. Katharine previously served as the Legal Education Specialist for the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative (formerly ABA-CEELI) in Baku, Azerbaijan; was a Fulbright scholar in Croatia; and worked in the post-war former Yugoslavia as well as in Germany. She is fluent in German, conversational in Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian and Spanish, and speaks basic Azerbaijani.

Notable Representations

Rossi v. CBS Corporation, 40 Media L. Rep. 2131, 2012 WL 2529357 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. July 3, 2012). Katharine, Gayle Sproul, and Tom Curley successfully defended CBS’s Philadelphia television station against defamation claims arising from news reports about a verbal altercation on a Little League field in New Jersey involving an adult coach and a 12-year-old player. The trial court awarded CBS summary judgment, and that decision was affirmed on appeal with a ruling that the reports dealt with a matter of public concern and were not published with actual malice.

Webb v. CBS Broadcasting Inc., 2011 WL 4062488 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 13, 2011), reconsideration denied, 2011 WL 4916341 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 17, 2011). Katharine, together with Lee Levine, Jay Ward Brown, and Ashley Kissinger, successfully defended CBS against claims that it invaded plaintiffs’ privacy and caused emotional distress by filming them in the backyard of a home in connection with a CBS news report. The court granted summary judgment in a decision that constitutes a significant precedent vindicating the news media’s right to photograph persons and activities in “plain view” from a public street.

Enterline v. Pocono Medical Center, 751 F. Supp. 2d 782 (M.D. Pa. 2008). Katharine and Gayle Sproul successfully defended The Pocono Record in its effort to quash a subpoena seeking the identities of people who posted anonymous comments on the newspaper’s website. The court held that media companies have standing to assert the First Amendment rights of the anonymous posters. This opinion appears to be the first to so hold, and thus represents a critical extension of the fast-evolving body of law related to the unmasking of anonymous online speakers.