Katharine Wolanyk
Managing Director
Katharine Wolanyk is a Managing Director with responsibility for leading Burford’s award-winning intellectual property and patent litigation finance business. The former head of Burford’s Chicago office, Ms. Wolanyk is now based in Phoenix, Arizona.
Ms. Wolanyk is an industry leader in financing intellectual property and patent litigation and writes and speaks frequently on intellectual property issues. She has been published in ABA Journal, Law360, IPWatchdog and IAM and has spoken at events including IPBC Global, EDTX Bench & Bar, American Intellectual Property Law Association, Center for American and International Law, University of Arizona and Chicago Bar Association.
Prior to joining Burford, Ms. Wolanyk was President, Chief Legal Officer and Founder of Soverain Software, an enterprise software company whose patent portfolio has been licensed extensively in the software and Internet retailing industries. Ms. Wolanyk also was intellectual property counsel to a publicly traded IT solutions firm, General Counsel of a managed hosting provider, Senior Vice President of corporate development at a publicly traded enterprise software company, a corporate attorney at Latham & Watkins, and a systems engineer at Hughes Aircraft Company, where she worked on the radar system for the stealth bomber.
Ms. Wolanyk graduated from the University of Chicago Law School and has a BS in engineering from Michigan State University.
Recognition
“Another star at Burford that we have worked with extensively is Katharine Wolanyk. As the former President and CLO of a software company, Katharine is able to discuss complex legal finance issues with senior executives at our corporate clients and craft solutions that fit their needs.” Partner,
Leading law firm
IAM Strategy 300: The World’s Leading IP Strategists 2015-2022
Global 100 Leaders in Legal Finance, Lawdragon 2020-2023
Band 2-US Litigation Funding: Intellectual Property, Chambers and Partners 2022-2023
100 Leading Legal Consultants and Strategists Lawdragon 2019-2021