Katie Townsend

Katie Townsend is the Reporters Committee’s deputy executive director and legal director. She oversees the Reporters Committee’s legal services portfolio—including its litigation, vetting/pre-publication review, and amicus practices—and supervises the legal work of the Reporters Committee’s team of staff attorneys and legal fellows. Townsend leads the Reporters Committee’s impact litigation efforts, and regularly represents news organizations and journalists, including documentary filmmakers, in public records, court access, and legal defense matters. In 2020, Townsend led the Reporters Committee’s successful launch of its Local Legal Initiative (LLI) to provide legal support for local investigative and enterprise reporting in Colorado, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. Prior to joining the Reporters Committee, she was a litigation associate in the Los Angeles office of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, where she specialized in media and entertainment litigation.