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Cathy is a veteran trial lawyer who defends companies that face complex disputes with other businesses and the United States or state governments. She is known for her strengths-based leadership of teams that deliver definitive client solutions.

A partner in Womble’s Business Litigation Group, Cathy represents companies in disputes involving real estate development projects, commercial lending, commercial leasing, corporate governance disputes, commercial contracts, business fraud, and employment claims. Cathy has represented residential and commercial real estate developers, financial services companies, professional services firms, government contractors, emerging tech companies, software developers, manufacturers, and receivers and bankruptcy trustees in civil litigation.

Cathy also counsels clients under investigation by regulatory authorities or law enforcement agencies and defends clients charged with white collar crimes. These matters have included defense of companies and executives accused of RICO, FCA, money laundering, gambling, and fraud offenses. She also helps clients respond to forfeitures, seizures and whistleblower claims, and conduct internal investigations.

Cathy’s diverse experience includes successful bench and jury trials, mediations and arbitrations, obtaining and defending against emergency injunctive relief, appellate practice and proficiency in complex e-discovery.

Cathy serves on the firm’s Professionalism Committee and leads the firm’s women’s leadership program, Women of Womble (WOW).

Susanna J. Gray is Vice President and Corporate Counsel in Prudential’s Enterprise Litigation Group, with responsibility for managing litigation related to the Individual Solutions Group (Individual Life Insurance, Annuities, and Prudential Advisors). Ms. Gray previously had responsibility for all litigation related to PGIM’s asset management businesses. Ms. Gray is also co-head of Prudential’s Corporate Investigations Division, which has oversight responsibility for all fraud investigations enterprise-wide. Ms. Gray is a relationship manager for NAMWOLF and serves as the Chairperson of the Professional Association Committee. Ms. Gray joined Prudential in 2013.

Prior to joining Prudential, Ms. Gray was Assistant General Counsel at a specialty pharmaceutical company in New Jersey. Previously, Ms. Gray was a litigation associate at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP and a law clerk to The Honorable Jerome B. Simandle, U.S.D.J., D.N.J.

Ms. Gray received her JD and MA degrees from Rutgers University and her AB from Princeton University.

Karin Ashford is the Vice-President of Legal and Business Affairs at Penn National Gaming, Inc., a Pennsylvania based casino gaming company which, through its subsidiaries, owns, operates or has interests in 29 casinos and racetracks in 17 jurisdictions in the U.S. and Canada, and which has recently expanded into social online gaming offerings. She concentrates her work on representing the company in litigation brought against, or sometimes brought by, the company. She is the legal advisor for the company on all cyber-related issues.

Ms. Skyles is an experienced, trusted legal adviser, who specializes in intellectual property matters and privacy and data security. Ms. Skyles specializes in patent litigation matters, IP portfolio management and development, complex technology transactions, and privacy and data security incident response and compliance. Her litigation experience also includes representing technology companies in e-commerce, class actions, employment, bankruptcy, and corporate derivative suits.

Ms. Skyles is currently Assistant General Counsel for Privacy at Capital One in McLean, VA, and previously served as Assistant General Counsel for IP Litigation. Before that, Ms. Skyles was Of Counsel at Orrick Herrington as a part of its intellectual property and data security and privacy groups in Washington, D.C. Previously, she served as head of litigation and risk management/compliance at SafeNet, Inc., a data security and encryption technology company based in Maryland. Prior to SafeNet, she ran her own law practice, Skyles Law Group in the greater Washington metro area, where she managed litigation and other dispute resolution matters for a variety of technology and media companies.

Before moving to the East Coast, Ms. Skyles worked for over a decade in Silicon Valley. She held the role of Litigation Counsel for Yahoo! Inc., where she oversaw domestic and international litigation and provided legal counsel to business clients in the areas of product planning, product compliance, litigation avoidance, and contractual matters such as technology licensing, indemnities, warranties, joint-ventures, and mergers and acquisitions. Ms. Skyles also worked as a Litigation Associate for Fenwick & West LLP in Palo Alto, California and was a law clerk for the Honorable William H. Orrick, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Ms. Skyles graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University with a B.A. in History. She obtained a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where she was an editor of the Stanford Law Review.