Kristin Bateman

Senior Counsel

Kristin Bateman is Senior Counsel at Democracy Forward.

Before joining Democracy Forward, she was Assistant General Counsel for Litigation at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where she helped lead the team of lawyers responsible for the agency’s defensive, appellate, and amicus litigation. Kristin joined the CFPB just after its founding in 2011 and handled some of the agency’s highest-profile cases, including multiple separation-of-powers challenges to the agency that were ultimately resolved by the Supreme Court. Other work included successfully defending CFPB regulations and enforcement actions in district courts and courts of appeals, beating back constitutional attacks on consumer-protection statutes, and advancing the CFPB’s views on novel statutory interpretation questions.

Kristin clerked for Judge Richard Paez of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Judge Gary Feess of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Before law school, she worked at People For the American Way promoting voting rights, tax fairness, and civil rights and liberties. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and summa cum laude from Georgetown University.