Kathryn M. Kase
Houston, TX
Office of Harris County Judge Lina Hildalgo
University of Kansas, B.S. Journalism
St Marys University-San Antonio School of Law, J.D.
Kathryn M. Kase serves as Legal Counsel to the CEO of Harris County, Texas: Judge Linda Hidalgo. In addition to advising the County Judge on all manner of legal issues, her work includes improving the quality of indigent defense in Harris County. She also has wide and deep experience as a capital defense lawyer, having previously worked with Texas Defender Service for 15 years, five of them as its Executive Director.
Her capital defense work has addressed the complexities of intellectual disability, mental illness, and international law. In addition to representing capital clients at the trial and habeas levels, she also has consulted with and assisted trial-level defense teams, with a special focus on teams representing foreign nationals facing the death penalty in the United States.
She received a law degree, cum laude, in 1990, from St. Mary’s University School of Law, where she was an Articles Editor for the St. Mary’s Law Journal. She is licensed in Texas, New York, and the District of Columbia, and has practiced in New York as well as Texas.
She speaks frequently throughout the U.S. at CLE programs devoted to capital defense. In 2002, the Criminal Justice Section of the New York State Bar Association named her the Outstanding Criminal Practitioner. The National Law Journal recognized her as an Outstanding Woman Lawyer in 2015, and in 2017 the Association of Women Lawyers recognized her as a Premier Woman in Law.
