Katherine Lubin Benson

Katherine Lubin Benson is a partner in our San Francisco office specializing in securities and derivative suits and antitrust class actions.

Katherine’s successful cases include a shareholder derivative action against Wells Fargo’s current and former officers and directors arising from the illicit sales practices scandal. Katherine was a key member of Lieff Cabraser team representing Co-Lead Plaintiff Fire and Police Pension Association of Colorado in the action, which settled for a $240 million cash payment and corporate governance reforms in late 2018. The settlement received final approval in April 2020, and represents the largest insurer-funded derivative settlement in history.

Katherine is also an experienced antitrust litigator. Her recent antitrust successes include representing a class of hospitals, third-party payors, and uninsured persons in 29 states and the District of Columbia in an antitrust class action against defendants Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Sandoz Inc. for their alleged monopolization of enoxaparin, the generic version of the anti-coagulant blood clotting drug Lovenox. Katherine had primary responsibility for the litigation on a day to day basis for the firm as Class Counsel, and oversaw all aspects of case management including pleadings, discovery, class certification, summary judgment, expert work, and pre-trial preparation. The case settled in late 2019, shortly before trial, and received final approval in May 2020. The settlement, totaling $120 million, is the second largest indirect purchaser antitrust pharmaceutical settlement fund in history. Lieff Cabraser’s work on the case was recognized by the American Antitrust Institute, which honored the firm with the 2020 Outstanding Private Practice Antitrust Achievement award. Katherine was awarded AAI’s Outstanding Antitrust Litigation Achievement by a Young Lawyer award for her contributions to the case.

Katherine serves as a Northern District of California Lawyer Representative to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Council. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Bar Association of San Francisco. She is also on the Board of the Northern District Practice Program, which provides continuing legal education programming for judges and practitioners in the district, and of East Bay Community Law Center, a non-profit affiliated with Berkeley Law providing free legal services to low-income communities. Between 2012 and 2017, she coached a Berkeley Law mock trial team competing in the American Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Trial Advocacy Competition.

Katherine received her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Berkeley Law) in 2008, where she was a member of the Berkeley Law Mock Trial Team and won first place for the San Francisco Trial Lawyer’s Mock Trial Competition. During law school, she worked as a judicial extern for the Honorable Dean D. Pregerson of the U.S. District Court, Central District of California.