Catherine Jackson
Senior Advocacy Counsel
Catherine Jackson is senior advocacy counsel at Arabella, based in the firm’s DC office. She works with the director of advocacy to ensure legal compliance and provide expert guidance to the firm and the nonprofit organizations it manages on a range of legal issues related to advocacy work. Catherine has substantial state nonprofit regulatory experience and focuses on state lobbying and political activity compliance, as well as on public ethics issues. In addition to this expertise, she has significant experience conducting complex legal work in matters related to impact litigation and public interest enforcement.
Prior to joining Arabella, Catherine was the chief of the Public Integrity section at the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, where she managed a team of lawyers and staff investigating and enforcing nonprofit compliance. This work included ensuring compliance with nonprofit, charitable solicitation, and ethics and reporting laws; reviewing governance, accountability, and transparency issues arising from financial reporting, fiscal sponsorship, or supporting/supported organization structures; and investigating relationships between IRS (c)(3) and (c)(4) organizations. Catherine also worked with local organizations and practitioners to provide and support education on best practices for nonprofit corporate boards and members. In that position, as well as in her previous work in the Office of the Attorney General for California and in private practice, Catherine has represented her client’s interests before state and federal trial and appellate courts, administrative agencies, and arbitration forums.
Catherine earned her law degree from Georgetown University and her Bachelor of Arts in political science from UCLA. She is a member of the DC and California Bars, as well as the bars of several federal district and appellate courts.