Kathy Hirata Chin

Kathy also had 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 had extensive experience with real estate foreclosures, having herself conducted or supervised foreclosures of numerous multimillion-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.

From August 1995 until December 2001, Kathy served as a member of the New York City Planning Commission, nominated by former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Currently, she was the acting chair of the New York City Commission to Combat Police Corruption. She had been a member of the Commission since appointment by former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in August 2003.

Kathy was a member of former Governor Mario M. Cuomo's Judicial Screening Committee for the First Judicial Department from 1992 to 1994 and of the Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Eastern District of New York from 1992 to 1999. She 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 also served on the Second Circuit Judicial Conference Planning and Program Committee. She was a member of former Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye's Commission to Promote Public Confidence in Judicial Elections from 2003 to 2006. She was 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. 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 former Governor Andrew Cuomo to the First Department Judicial Screening Committee.

Kathy served as a member of the boards of directors of the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, the New York County Lawyers Association, and the New York City Bar Association. She was co-chair of the board of directors of the Medicare Rights Center, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to helping older adults and people with disabilities get good, affordable health care. Since September 2021, she had been a member of the board of directors of EmblemHealth, one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health insurers.

Kathy was a member of the Asian American Bar Association of New York (AABANY), the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA), the New York State Bar Association, the Federal Bar Council, 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 January 2016, Kathy served as a member of the Second Circuit Judicial Council Committee on Civic Education & Public Engagement, focusing on historic reenactments as a teaching tool. With her husband, the Honorable Denny Chin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and teams of lawyers and judges from AABANY, she developed and presented reenactments of famous cases such as the Heart Mountain draft resisters and Korematsu, and for the Just the Beginning Foundation’s tribute to Constance Baker Motley, a reenactment of James Meredith’s suit against Ole Miss.

On Oct. 18, 2017, Kathy was honored by the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health (AAIUH) 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 Nov. 1, 2017, Kathy received the Lillian D. Wald Award from the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, a nonprofit 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 Feb. 10, 2018, Columbia Law School's Asian Pacific American Law Student Association presented Kathy with its inaugural Hong Yen Chen Award, and on Feb. 28, 2018, AABANY honored Kathy with its Women’s Leadership Award. On May 28, 2019, she was honored at the Columbia Law School Alumni Association’s Hong Yen Chen Inaugural Reception for her dedication to the Asian community.

Kathy joined Crowell in October 2018 after 38 years at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, where she began her career and became a partner in 1990.