Fox names Katherine Moran Meeks new general counsel

Katherine Moran Meeks has been named general counsel of Fox News Media. 

Meeks will begin her new role on Aug. 19, 2024, while Bernard T. Gugar has stepped down from his position as general counsel and executive vice president of corporate development.

Meeks will report directly to CEO Suzanne Scott with further reporting responsibilities to Fox Corp.’s Chief Legal and Policy Officer Adam Ciongoli.

“We thank Bernard for his incredibly hard work and extensive contributions over the last three years and wish him the best of luck in his next role,” Scott said in a statement.

In commenting on the transition, Gugar said, “My decision to step down was a difficult one, but I’m grateful to everyone at Fox News Media for an incredibly rewarding experience and wish the network nothing but continued success.”

In 2023, Fox Corp.’s chief legal and policy officer Viet Dinh exited the media division’s parent company. Dinh remained as an adviser, but his departure came four months after the company’s cable network agreed to pay $787.5 million to Dominion Voting Systems to settle a defamation case brought by the voting technology company.

Fox Corp. and its cable network are still facing a similar lawsuit brought by Smartmatic. Both suits accuse the network of airing false and misleading information about the voting companies’ alleged roles in conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was rigged. There has been no evidence of widespread fraud, tampering or misconduct in the 2020 election, including by Smartmatic or Dominion or their products and services.

Most recently, Meeks was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher where she practiced in the firm’s litigation department as well as the appellate and constitutional law and labor and employment groups. In private practice, she has represented journalists and media companies in libel and other speech-based tort cases, from discovery through dispositive motions, trial and appeal.

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Meeks has also presented oral argument in the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits and in federal district courts.

Prior to her stint at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, she was an associate at Williams & Connolly in the firm’s media and first amendment practice group and earlier clerked for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court and then-Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Meeks began her career as a journalist, starting as a reporter for The Day in New London, Connecticut. In 2005 she moved to New Orleans to join The Times-Picayune in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which later won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the devastating Category 5 storm. She covered various beats there including local politics and government, real estate and health care and was promoted to Deputy Business Editor before leaving to embark on a law career.

A summa cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Meeks served as editor-in-chief of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and was awarded the Oscar Milton Davis Prize for earning the highest marks in the third year. She received her bachelor’s degree from Yale University, where she was editor-in-chief of the Yale Herald.