Katherine Van Dyck ’01 has been on the winning side of lawsuits that have produced tens of millions of dollars in payments to clients from prison guards to gyms training aspiring cheerleaders. They shared one thing in common: being taken advantage of by large organizations.

Now the former litigation attorney and policy lawyer is playing a key role as attorney-adviser with the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. Its leader, Lina Khan, told ABC News in May 2024 that the agency was “just getting started” when it comes to taking on monopolies.

“I’ve seen up close how people’s lives are impacted when they don’t get the protection that they’re supposed to have under the law,” Van Dyck said, “or when somebody … feels emboldened to abuse their position over those people and seeing what those defendants are able to get away with when nobody’s watching.”

Early Influences

Van Dyck first felt the pull toward law and consumer and worker advocacy from the example set by her father, a general business litigator in Corpus Christi, Texas, where she grew up.

“My dad’s a lawyer, and so certainly watching him do that work had a heavy influence on my decision,” she said. “I view it today as being tasked with protecting people from abuses of power, and to me that’s become my driving motivation.”

Van Dyck, who majored in political science at TCU before going to law school at Texas Tech, recalled visiting the TCU campus as a high school senior. “Everyone was so friendly,” she said. “It just felt like home.”

Before entering the policy world, Katherine Van Dyck won several major victories as a private litigation attorney. Courtesy of Nicole Harkin

James Riddlesperger, a Piper Professor who teaches political science at TCU, said she was a standout student.

“A lot of people think that professors stare at a sea of blank faces, and that’s true to some degree,” he said. “But you always remember the ones that don’t have the blank faces, the ones who were obviously engaged in the material and laughed at your bad jokes and seemed to understand nuanced arguments. Katie was one of those students.”

“All of my professors knew who I was and were really engaged with their classes,” Van Dyck said. “Those were just really, really dynamic experiences that helped me start learning how to engage with people and really think more deeply about our system of government.”

Riddlesperger said anti-monopoly work is a core function of the government and one he’s not surprised that Van Dyck took on.

“The only way that you can obtain the advantages of capitalism and competition,” he said, “is if you assure that competition exists.”

Court Wins

Before entering the policy world, Van Dyck won major victories as a private litigation attorney.

She filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that Varsity Brands, which produced and sold apparel for All-Star Cheer events, engaged in anti-competitive practices that forced private gyms and spectators to pay artificially inflated prices for uniforms and competitions. The suit, filed on behalf of those private gyms, resulted in a 2023 settlement in which the defendants agreed to make institutional changes and pay $43.5 million, mostly to the gyms.

“That was a profound example of the power a monopolist can exercise over its customers,” Van Dyck said.

She was a member of the trial team that sued the Missouri Department of Corrections, alleging that 13,000 prison employees were forced to work hours without pay routinely. The team won a verdict from a jury; the state agreed to provide more than $100 million in back pay and future wages.

“Those officers are really hardworking people. They have really dangerous jobs. They’re not particularly well paid,” said Van Dyck, adding that the case “is an example of people needing protection from abuse of power.”

“You’re now seeing billions of dollars that are generated by college athletics, for the first time, being shared more equally with the athletes.”
Katherine Van Dyck

Such lawsuits also led to the 2021 U.S. Supreme Court decision that enabled college athletes to receive payments and other benefits related to education. Van Dyck argued in a policy paper, which is part of the Congressional Record, that the National Collegiate Athletic Association should be rebuffed for its efforts to persuade Congress to exempt it from federal antitrust and labor and employment laws.

The Supreme Court ruling “is a great example of the power of our antitrust laws and how they can be used to protect people who are being taken advantage of, in terms of taking the NCAA to task for what were pretty blatant violations of our antitrust laws — colluding, conspiring to limit athletes’ ability to earn fair wages,” Van Dyck said. “You’re now seeing billions of dollars that are generated by college athletics, for the first time, being shared more equally with the athletes.”

Impacting Policy

Beginning in 2022, Van Dyck served as senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, a nonprofit and nonpartisan anti-monopoly group. The work gave Van Dyck a chance to be involved in influencing policy outside the courtroom.

“After being in litigation for close to 20 years, I had seen the enormous roadblocks that plaintiffs face when they bring a lawsuit,” she said. “You have to win every single argument and every single motion; the defendants only have to win once.

“After experiencing firsthand how difficult it is to do that, I saw an opportunity to join American Economic Liberties Project and be a part of the policy world, where you can advocate for how you think laws should be enforced and how they should be changed and help create an environment where, ideally, these laws are enforced the way they should be,” she said.

Van Dyck joined the Federal Trade Commission in April, motivated by actions taken under its chair, Lina Khan, including the agency’s 2023 antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, set for trial in 2026. The agency alleges that Amazon hurt consumers by causing prices to go up on competing websites.

Kathleen Bradish, director of advocacy at the American Antitrust Institute, said Van Dyck’s work “fits in perfectly with the mission of this FTC, which has been very proactive in going after the biggest monopolists of our time.”

Katherine Van Dyck joined the Federal Trade Commission in April.

In April, the Federal Trade Commission passed a rule banning noncompete clauses in contracts that prevent workers from taking a new job or starting a new business that competes with that employer. The agency also is aiming to ban so-called junk fees, such as those assessed by hotels or concert ticket sellers that the agency said are hidden.

The moves followed the agency’s win that resulted in a lifetime ban against “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli from participating in the pharmaceutical industry, as well as an order that he forfeit $64.6 million in profit. Shkreli was found to have perpetuated a monopoly for a drug that treated parasitic infections, enabling his company to protect the drug’s price increase from $17.50 per tablet to $750 per tablet.

“The FTC is charged with protecting people from unfair, deceptive and anticompetitive business practices,” Van Dyck said. “I spent the last 12 years of my career doing that type of work in the private sector, and this was an exciting opportunity to be part of federal enforcement efforts and to work with an incredibly smart and talented group of attorneys.”