Kate Paterson is a senior associate in our Dispute Resolution Department specialising in public law litigation.

Kate has wide-ranging experience in constitutional and administrative law, including research and litigation related to public procurement, data protection and privacy, broad-based black economic empowerment, the rights to education and health, children’s rights and land reform.  

Between 2015 and 2017, Kate practised at SECTION27, a public interest law centre in Johannesburg, where she specialised in the right to basic education.  She later clerked for Justice Edwin Cameron at the Constitutional Court of South Africa.  

Kate has a BA with Honours in Law and Politics from Rhodes University, an LLB from the University of the Witwatersrand and an LLM from the University of Cambridge.

Relevant Experience

• Representing civil society organisations and plaintiffs in education provisioning cases, including Minister of Basic Education v Basic Education for All 2016 (4) SA 63 (SCA), Komape v Minister of Basic Education [2018] ZALMPPHC 18 (23 April 2018), and Equal Education and Another v Minister of Basic Education and Others 2019 (1) SA 421 (ECB).
• Advising the Independent Schools Association of Southern African and the Catholic Schools Office on various matters, including on the reopening of schools during the COVID-19 state of disaster and the application of the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013.
• Advising international clients on the establishment of independent schools and tertiary institutions in South Africa.
• Advising private companies and industry bodies on the scope and effect of COVID-19 regulations, including the provision of emergency health facilities and the procurement of vaccines.
• Representing the PIC with defending litigation brought against it and the GEPF in a procurement related dispute.
• Representing Eskom in a multi-pronged dispute with a fuel oil supplier, including the successful defence of urgent review proceedings and the instigation of a ZAR1,2 billion claim.

• COVID-19: Latest developments in the education sector, South Africa
• COVID-19: The position of children in independent schools in South Africa