Kate Hodges Harmon

Overview

Kate Hodges Harmon is an experienced commercial litigator known for crafting creative solutions for clients, and for her commitment to fostering inclusion in the legal profession through dedicated service. 

A Partner in Benesch’s Restructuring and Bankruptcy practice, Kate represents clients across industries in Delaware’s state and federal courts as well as in courts across the country. Her practice focuses on complex commercial issues, including business defamation, busted deals, and other business divorces, and corporate litigation, including corporate governance issues, fiduciary duty disputes, and shareholder disputes. 

Kate consistently delivers high-value resolutions to her clients’ toughest challenges. Recent representations include:

• Serving as lead Delaware counsel to a global election technology firm in its defamation suit seeking over $2 billion against Newsmax and other media entities.  Kate’s deep ties to the Delaware legal community and knowledge of her fellow Delawareans allowed her to advise the firm’s client on strategy designed to maximize a successful outcome while also ensuring consistency with the Delaware Way.
• Obtaining a settlement in a high-profile Delaware Chancery Court case that enabled client e2 Companies to exit a contested deSPAC transaction, a significant outcome that is rare in deSPAC disputes. Kate designed and implemented an aggressive discovery strategy that helped create pressure sufficient for the plaintiff to choose settlement over litigation.

In these cases, and throughout her practice, Kate combines relentless pursuit of truth and justice with her Delaware roots to maximize successful outcomes or limit exposure for her clients.

Beyond her client work, Kate has made significant contributions to key legal industry organizations, including serving in several leadership roles for the Delaware State Bar Association (DSBA). Most recently, Kate completed a nine-year stint on the DSBA’s Executive Committee (as Immediate Past President (2024-2025) and President (2023-2024)), becoming the second-youngest President in the DSBA’s 100-year history and only the tenth woman President.  (Happily, Kate was able to be the first woman DSBA President to pass the gavel to another woman President.)  She has served on the DSBA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee for many years.  She also previously completed a two-year term as Co-Chair of the DSBA’s Women and the Law section. Kate also spent several years leading the Meals on Wheels Service Project for the DSBA’s MLK, Jr. Breakfast and Statewide Day of Service Planning Committee.

Kate also relishes serving as a mentor to many young Delaware attorneys and serves as a mentor in the firm’s mentor program. She views her mentoring work as living out her personal ethos to be part of the change she wishes to see. Kate is especially passionate about helping younger women professionals navigate the sometimes (most times) competing demands of personal and professional lives and has more recently become engaged in addressing the different challenges faced by mid-to-late career women professionals that have historically gone unaddressed. Through her mentoring work, Kate is committed to saying the hard parts out loud.

In her DSBA work, firm service work, mentoring and community service, Kate is passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. She was selected for the Delaware Business Times’ inaugural 222 List in 2023 and, in the same year, was selected as a 2023 Fellow of the Leadership Counsel on Legal Diversity, a competitive year-long professional development initiative for high-potential mid-career attorneys, after having been selected as a 2017 Pathfinder with the same organization. Kate was selected as a Business Law Fellow by the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section for 2017 through 2019, an honor given to young lawyers who demonstrate leadership experience and potential. Kate was also selected as a participant in the Next Generation Program of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges in 2016. Participants must demonstrate legal excellence; a serious commitment to principles of civility, ethics and professionalism; and commitment to professional activities that will benefit the public, members of the bar and the court system.

She has served on Benesch’s Inclusion and Opportunity Committee, First in Service Committee and Associate Development Committee (where she served as Vice-Chair before being promoted to Partner). Kate is also a member of the American Bar Association, American Bankruptcy Institute and the Richard S. Rodney Inn of Court.

Kate is a published author and a frequent speaker on issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion as well as substantive legal issues.

Before joining Benesch as an associate in 2019, Kate began her career as an associate at firms Reilly, Janiczek, McDevitt, Henrich & Cholden PC and Elliott Greenleaf, PC. She was elevated to Partner at Benesch in 2023. Kate earned her J.D. from Temple University Beasley School of Law, her Master’s in Social Services and Master’s in Law and Social Policy from Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, and her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Delaware. In addition to her work on behalf of clients and her service to the legal industry, Kate proudly provides pro bono services as a Child Attorney through the Delaware Office of the Child Advocate. A proud Delawarean born and raised, Kate lives outside of Wilmington with her two children.