Amy Kao

Amy Kao is a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and the inaugural full-time Executive Director of the Harvard Law School Program on Biblical Law and Christian Legal Studies. She has deep experience in design thinking as a mission-driven, solutions-oriented leader, through almost two decades in both private practice and higher education. Amy previously served as primary in-house counsel for Catalina Marketing Corporation, a mergers & acquisitions and securities attorney at K&L Gates LLP, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School, and a lecturer at Boston University School of Law. Amy has been lauded by her clients as a strategic business partner and trusted legal advisor in innovation, compliance, transactions, corporate governance, and negotiations.

While in-house at Catalina Marketing Corporation, she led and managed contracts management teams, delivering $6.1B in consumer value, designed data use and governance programs, negotiated business critical data network agreements, and oversaw product development, legal training, automation, and operations, intellectual property portfolios, and all cross-functional pre-litigation compliance and collaboration with tax, finance, and internal audit. She also led her company’s patent and invention review committee, formed and chaired the company’s data usage committee, directed the legal team’s training and internship program, and served as an executive officer of all 8 company-affiliated domestic subsidiaries.

Additionally, in her practice as a corporate, mergers & acquisitions, and securities attorney at K&L Gates LLP, she represented leading universities, including Duke University and The Juilliard School and many well-known public and private companies, especially in the medical device, security, consumer packaged goods, and natural foods spaces, and advised on deals with a host of other companies and industries along the way. She also served on the firm’s hiring committee.

Beyond legal practice, Amy served many years as a director and officer of the Asian American Lawyers Association of Massachusetts, as a director of the Monte Jade New England Science and Technology Association, a homeschool academy teacher and department head, and on the board of advisors of an academic consulting company. In her pro bono service, she has represented companies and non-profits focused on women in science, performing arts in urban centers, healthcare access, international health, education, and community development, and the study of the original languages of the Bible.

Amy was a visiting clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Transactional Law Clinic, training, teaching, and mentoring law students in business and non-profit law. She was also a lecturer at Boston University School of Law where she taught courses on effective in-house counseling, and on drafting and negotiating transactional contracts, with an emphasis on the importance and role of attorneys in building thriving businesses.

Amy has published in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, and is a frequent speaker on topics of business, entrepreneurship, law, mentoring, and cross-border transactions, addressing universities, bar and trade associations, and embassies.

Amy received her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School and her Bachelor of Science with highest honors in Conservation and Resource Studies (Environmental Health Law) from the University of California at Berkeley. She is licensed to practice in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.