AILA Presents K. Catherine Walker with the 2026 Joseph Minsky Young Lawyer Award

WASHINGTON, DC - The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) recognizes K. Catherine Walker with the 2026 Joseph Minsky Young Lawyer Award for her outstanding contributions made as a young lawyer in the field of immigration and nationality law.

Ms. Walker's work on behalf of immigrants' rights began during her time as a student attorney with American University Washington College of Law's International Human Rights Law Clinic. She represented clients before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and filed a Federal Torts Claims Act claim on behalf of families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border.

As her nominators shared, "Shortly after law school, Ms. Walker moved to Miami and began representing underserved clients with nonprofit legal service providers. She immediately began working with vulnerable clients, including unaccompanied children and detained individuals with mental and physical disabilities. To serve her clients, she learned Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole. Ms. Walker subsequently developed a caseload of working with predominately detained clients at Americans for Immigrant Justice, rising to the level of supervising attorney within only two years of graduating from law school."

Her award is for her work as a young lawyer, where even in just a few years "Ms. Walker has developed expertise in removal defense, federal litigation, and complex crimmigration cases, quickly becoming an asset in her current role as an associate attorney at Grossman Young & Hammond. Ms. Walker's outstanding legal research and oral advocacy skills have enabled her to obtain positive outcomes for her clients, including release from detention on bond and winning protection from removal for many clients in immigration court." Her nominators add, "When approaching litigation, Ms. Walker thinks not only about what a particular outcome will mean for her client, but also about the long-term impact of judicial decisions on future cases."

As a final note, her nominators shared that "In sum, Ms. Walker is a tenacious advocate for the immigrant community and is a rising star in the field of immigration and nationality law" sure to be an asset to the AILA membership and the practice of immigration law in the future.