Kathleen
Foote

Kathleen Foote led the Antitrust Law Section of the California Department of Justice for two decades, stepping down in January 2023. During her tenure under five consecutive administrations, she advised the state’s attorney general on competition matters and enforcement priorities in numerous California and national markets including oil and gas, technology, healthcare, labor, agriculture and consumer retail. She has been a major figure in the growing importance of the states in U.S. antitrust enforcement both through California’s role in litigation and from her past chairing of the multistate Antitrust Task Force of the National Association of Attorneys General. She was recognized by the California State Bar as Antitrust Lawyer of the Year in 2013 and awarded the American Antitrust Institute’s Fred Kahn Award for Lifetime Achievement in the same year.

Kathleen began her work for the state as an antitrust trial attorney, handling cases in the areas of insurance and technology, and reviewing mergers and acquisitions in banking, gasoline and healthcare. Later, as the antitrust chief, she doubled the size of California’s team of state antitrust professionals that is the largest and most diverse in the country and is recognized for its pathbreaking litigation and innovative solutions. She was also responsible for the development of a model approach to certain monetary settlements based on charitable trust principles that has produced many lasting benefits for the public, including co-founding a national institute on public entity risk management and the University of California’s Petris Center on Healthcare Markets and Consumer Welfare.

Kathleen’s civic background includes past service on the California Energy Commission’s Petroleum Market Advisory Committee, and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, as well as several municipal roles that include two terms as mayor of Mill Valley, California, and lead roles in county agency planning and ballot measures. She is also a past trustee and board chair of the Marin Community Foundation, one of the largest community foundations in the country.

Currently, Kathleen is a member of the advisory board of the American Antitrust Institute, a committee vice-chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Antitrust Law and an informal advisor to the California Law Revision Commission.

She began her career working as an associate attorney at the San Francisco-based law firm of McCutchen Doyle Brown & Enersen (now Morgan Lewis) and later served as assistant professor and associate dean at the University of San Francisco School of Law, where she taught land use and environmental law.