Cate Stetson

Cate Stetson teaches Appellate Practice and Evidence and co-instructs the Appellate Litigation Clinic.  A member of the American Law Institute, Stetson has argued multiple Supreme Court cases, over 130 appeals across every federal circuit and 10 state appellate courts, and dozens of trial-court matters spanning the country.

Stetson is a graduate of Duke University and a 1994 graduate of the Law School. Following clerkships on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Stetson joined Hogan Lovells (then Hogan & Hartson) in Washington, D.C., where she has spent 28 years as an associate, partner and co-head of the firm’s appellate practice. In private practice, Stetson has argued four cases in the U.S. Supreme Court: Taylor v. Sturgell (2008), Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela v. Helmerich & Payne (2016), State of Ohio v. EPA (2024) and Smith & Wesson v. Mexico (2025).

Among her appellate matters, Stetson has argued dozens of complex administrative procedure cases in the federal trial and appellate courts, with a particular concentration in the D.C. Circuit and the federal district court for the District of Columbia. Her experience spans a number of substantive areas, including the energy, food and drug, technology and telecommunications industries. Stetson also has a long history of pro bono service, including representing dozens of death-row inmates in a challenge to the federal death-penalty protocol and representing an individual in a constitutional challenge to his civil commitment.