Kathryn Judge

Kathryn Judge is the Harvey J. Goldschmid Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Intellectual Life at Columbia Law School. She is an expert on banking, financial innovation, financial crises and regulatory architecture. In her book Direct: The Rise of the Middleman Economy and the Power of Going to the Source (HarperBusiness), she uses the insights she gained from years of studying financial intermediation to explain broader shifts in the structure of the economy, the increasing power of intermediaries across numerous domains, and how these changes have contributed to new sources of fragility and undermined accountability.

Judge regularly presents her work to audiences in the United States and abroad, allowing her to engage with an array of policy makers, academics and industry leaders. Her academic work has received accolades from academic peers and industry. Her book Direct was on the longlist for the Financial Times Business book of the Year, among other accolades. More information about Direct, Judge's popular writing, and other press is available on her website, kathrynjudge.com

Judge currently serves as an editor of the Journal of Financial Regulation and a research member of the European Corporate Governance Institute. She previously served on the Financial Stability Task Force co-sponsored by the Brookings Institution and Chicago Booth School of Business as well as the Financial Research Advisory Committee to the Office of Financial Regulation. While serving on FRAC, she co-chaired the working group on financial innovation and the working group on the LIBOR transition.

Prior to joining Columbia Law School, Judge clerked for Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Stephen Breyer of the Supreme Court. She also worked as a corporate associate with Latham & Watkins LLP. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School (J.D. with Distinction, 2004), where she earned the Urban A. Sontheimer Honor (second in class), and Wesleyan University (B.A. with High Honors, 1999).