Katie Jo Luningham

A native of Kansas, Mrs. Katie Jo Luningham (née Baumgardner) is currently an attorney at Alston & Bird, practicing civil litigation and appellate law. She represents institutions of higher education and also defends corporate clients in data privacy and cybersecurity litigation. She is recognized by The Best Lawyers “Ones to Watch” for commercial litigation. She previously served as a law clerk for Judge Branch on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

Prior to clerking, Mrs. Luningham was an attorney at Husch Blackwell in Kansas City, where she specialized in higher education litigation and regulatory compliance. She was a member of the legal team that won the 2017 Education Law Association’s award for “Best Brief” and a 2017 Missouri Bar Pro Bono Wall of Fame honoree for her commitment to pro bono legal service.

In 2015, Mrs. Luningham earned a JD, magna cum laude, from Notre Dame Law School, where she won the NDLS First-Year Moot Court Tournament and received the Dean’s Award for Legal Writing and Law of Education. In 2015, she won a Burton Distinguished Legal Writing Award, administered by the U.S. Library of Congress.

Mrs. Luningham earned a BA in University Scholars, summa cum laude with honors, from Baylor in 2011. She attended Baylor as a National Merit Scholar on a full academic scholarship.

She is married to Dr. Justin Luningham (BA ’09), an assistant professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. The Luninghams are members of St. Paul Lutheran Church and have two children, James and Lily Mae.