Kate Ball, Esq.
Kate Ball is an entrepreneurial advocate and enthusiast. Having started her career in biglaw at Latham & Watkins in Washington, D.C., Kate currently practices in the areas of venture capital and entrepreneurship, with the goal of providing sophisticated legal representation to emerging companies.
Kate’s law firm, the Gillespie Law Group, is composed of five attorneys equally devoted to entrepreneurship. The firm represents companies in company formation, capital raise and exit transactions, while acting as de facto general counsel in between. Kate started the firm’s technology transfer practice and, after years of studying the industry and university policies, in 2020 she represented multiple faculty members and their business colleagues in university spinout transactions. Kate served as an attorney advisor for the State of Ohio’s 2019 university tech transfer initiative and she constantly suggests ideas to make tech transfer more accessible.
Kate is active in the entrepreneurial community. She has organized Columbus Startup Week, judged Startup Weekend, guest lectured at The Ohio State University’s Entrepreneurial Business Law Clinic, and served as a mentor and speaker for The Ohio State University’s Starting Line program, among other activities. She also volunteers for the non-profit organization Per Scholas, which aims to provide technology education to underrepresented populations, and mentors young attorneys, both informally and formally through the Franklin County Women Lawyers’ mentorship program.
Kate’s north star is legal technology—specifically, the productization of legal services to free attorneys from selling their time. A lifelong learner, Kate recently completed a visual programming bootcamp and built a rudimentary application to customize common legal documents. Her goal is to make legal services more efficient, both for attorneys and clients, and increase access to legal representation for any founder with a problem to solve.
Prior to joining her current firm, Kate completed two federal clerkships in the Southern District of Ohio and served on the board of the Federal Bar Association’s Columbus Chapter. She is a 2009 graduate of Notre Dame Law School, where she served on the Notre Dame Law Review, received various academic awards, and was voted “best sense of humor” in her graduating class.