Kathleen Morris is a Senior Fellow at Justice Catalyst, researching law, democracy, localism, and federalism.

She is a Professor of Law at Golden Gate University, where she specializes in Federal and State Constitutional Law, State and Local Government Law, Public Lawyering, and Legal Education. From 2003-2012 Professor Morris served as a deputy city attorney for San Francisco, where she was a lead counsel in several dozen cases, including the defense of then-Mayor Gavin Newsom’s decision to allow same-sex couples to marry and the city’s challenges to California’s marriage laws. In 2006, she and now-Dean Heather K. Gerken co-founded Yale Law School’s San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project. At Golden Gate Law School, Professor Morris created the Cities Law & Policy Project, an ongoing collaboration between the law school, its students, and urban law and policy leaders to create an open-source online owners manual for innovative city government. Professor Morris has a law degree from Berkeley Law School; a Masters degree in Politics from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland; and a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from California State University, Northridge. After law school she served as a law clerk to Sidney R. Thomas, Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.