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Karen McCartan DeSantis ’86 J.D.

Karen McCartan DeSantis is a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Karen has a wide range of experience in trial, arbitration, general litigation, negotiation, and counseling representing several Fortune 500 companies in a variety of commercial and class action litigation matters, including product liability, mass tort, RICO, securities, antitrust, constitutional, employment, and ERISA litigation, as well as government enforcement actions. Karen has served as counsel in mass tort cases, in environmental litigation,  and has vast experience in litigation involving issues of epidemiology, toxicology, medicine, engineering, and other scientific disciplines.

Karen is a graduate of Princeton University and the Notre Dame Law School, where she was a White Scholar, Editor-in-Chief of the Notre Dame Journal of Law Ethics and Public Policy and the recipient of the Barrett Award for excellence in trial advocacy.  She is currently a visiting faculty member in Notre Dame Law School’s Trial Advocacy Program, and she also teaches in Catholic University of America’s trial advocacy program.

Karen serves on the Board of Trustees of the University of Notre Dame, and has served as Chair of the Board of Trustees of Norwood School in Bethesda, Maryland and as Board Chair of Notre Dame’s Washington, D.C. Magnificat School. She is currently on the Board of Trustees of Washington Middle School for Girls, a private school serving an underprivileged population in Washington, D.C. She is a member of the Advisory Board of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education, Princeton University’s Schools Committee, and the Founding National Steering Committee of “ND Women Connect.” She was founding co-chair of the D.C. Kirkland & Ellis Women’s Leadership Initiative.  Karen is married to Victor J. DeSantis, Executive Partner of the Washington office of White & Case LLP. They have two sons, Michael (ND ’16) and Thomas.