Kathy Hirata Chin concentrates her practice in health care and real estate litigation. Kathy has successfully represented individual health care providers and associations of such providers in challenges to actions taken by state and federal agencies, including multiple suits regarding Medicaid reimbursement issues. Kathy has also defended an international dialysis services provider against RICO claims in federal court based on allegedly fraudulent billing activity; represented a pharmaceutical services provider in a billing dispute with a chain of nursing homes; defended home health agencies in suits brought by employees pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act; and represented other providers and associations of providers as plaintiffs and defendants in a variety of matters in federal and state court involving issues ranging from contract interpretation to cash receipts assessments to the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. As counsel to a religious institution, she has successfully defended claims of religious discrimination.

Kathy also has wide experience in various forms of real estate litigation, including disputes over transferable development rights, leasehold valuation, allocation of PILOT monies, and local law compliance issues. She has extensive experience with real estate foreclosures, having herself conducted or supervised foreclosures of numerous multi-million dollar mortgages on various types of property, including office buildings, condominium complexes, and mixed-use buildings.  In 2013, she successfully argued for reversal by the New York State Court of Appeals of an adverse decision by an intermediate appellate court in a lease interpretation matter, thereby obtaining dismissal of the suit in its entirety against her client.

Kathy graduated from Columbia University School of Law, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. She graduated, magna cum laude, from Princeton University. Kathy is admitted to practice in the State of New York; the U.S. District Courts for the Southern, Eastern, and Northern Districts of New York; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; and the Supreme Court of the United States.

From August 1995 until December 2001, Kathy served as a member of the New York City Planning Commission, nominated by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Currently, she is a member of the New York City Commission to Combat Police Corruption, a position she has held since appointment by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in August 2003.

Kathy was a member of Governor Mario M. Cuomo’s Judicial Screening Committee for the First Judicial Department from 1992-1994 and of the Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Eastern District of New York from 1992-1999. She has served as a member of the Gender Bias Committee of the Second Circuit Task Force on Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness, and on the New York County Lawyers’ Association’s Task Force to Increase Diversity in the Legal Profession. She was a member of Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye’s Commission to Promote Public Confidence in Judicial Elections from 2003- 2006. She is currently serving as a member of The Attorney Emeritus Advisory Council and The Commercial Division Advisory Council, appointed to both by the Honorable Jonathan Lippman, former Chief Judge of the State of New York.  She is also vice chair of the Board of Directors of the Medicare Rights Center, a national, independent nonprofit organization dedicated to helping older adults and people with disabilities get good, affordable health care. In December 2012 and again in December 2014, she was nominated for appointment to the State Court of Appeals by the New York State Commission on Judicial Nomination.  In April 2016, she was appointed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to the First Department Judicial Screening Committee.

Kathy has served as a member of the Boards of Director of the New York Lawyers for Public Interest and the New York County Lawyers Association.  She has also served Second Circuit Judicial Conference Planning and Program Committee and is a member of the Asian American Bar Association of New York, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, the Federal Bar Council, and the New York County Lawyers Association, and the New York City Bar Association.  In 2006, Kathy was honored by NAPABA at a dinner hosted by AABANY in New York for “Leaders Among Us: Asian American Women.”  In June 2015, she was honored by the New York City Bar Association as a 2015 Diversity and Inclusion Champion.  Since September 1, 2017, she has served as co-chair of the Enhance Diversity in the Profession Committee of the City Bar, with Hon. Rosalyn Richter of the Appellate Division, First Department.

Since January 2016, Kathy has served as a member of the Second Circuit Judicial Council Committee on Civic Education & Public Engagement, focusing on historical reenactments as a teaching tool.  With her husband, the Hon. Denny Chin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and teams of lawyers and judges from AABANY, Just the Beginning Foundation, she has developed and presented reenactments of famous cases such as the Heart Mountain draft resisters and James Meredith’s suit against Ole Miss.

On October 18, 2017, Kathy was honored by the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health with its Leadership Award.  AAIUH collaborates with community members to design, incubate and replicate neighborhood-based interventions that address health conditions that disproportionately affect minorities.  On November 1, 2017, Kathy received the Lillian D. Wald Award from the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, a non-profit home and community-based health care organization that helps thousands of New Yorkers get the care they need.  She was also honored as a “25th Anniversary Celebrant” by Apex for Youth on April 26, 2017.  Apex for Youth provides mentoring and educational programs for underserved Asian and immigrant youth in New York City.

On February 10, 2018, Columbia Law School APALSA presented Kathy with its inaugural Hong Yen Chen Award, and on February 28, 2018, AABANY honored Kathy with its Women’s Leadership Award.