J.D. from Yale Law School

Ph.D. in Philosophy from University of Southern California 

B.A. in Philosophy from University of California, Davis, summa cum laude

Law Clerk to the Honorable William Fletcher
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, Supreme Court and Appellate Division

Office of the Federal Public Defender, Northern District of California

Liman Fellow, San Francisco Public Defender’s Office

Member of the State Bar of California

Admitted in the Northern District and Central District of California, and in the First, Fifth, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals

Admitted in the California Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court

Kory won a major appellate victory for long-time BHB client, Orion Telescopes, by reinstating a $4.2 million lawsuit against a competitor who fraudulently transferred funds to China to prevent Orion from collecting on its $54 million antitrust judgment. The Court’s opinion established that a party can be held liable for aiding and abetting a fraudulent transfer where it owes no debt to the plaintiff.

Optronic Technologies, Inc. v. Celestron Acquisition, LLC, 108 Cal.App.5th 770 (Cal.App., Jan. 15, 2025)
Opposing counsel: Frost LLP

Kory secured a landmark California Supreme Court victory establishing that a medical power of attorney lacks the authority to enter into a voluntary arbitration agreement on behalf of a principal. The Court’s opinion protects the tens of millions of Californians who have signed statutory forms that enable a loved one to make decisions for them if they become incapacitated, ensuring that their abusers cannot stop them from bringing meritorious cases against them in a court of law.  

Harrod v. Country Oaks Partners, LLC, 15 Cal. 5th 939 (2024)
Opposing counsel: Buchalter

Kory helped lead the BHB team that created a template for protecting press freedoms during protest activity. When the Department of Homeland Security infiltrated Los Angeles in 2025, Kory represented reporters and media organizations (LA Press Club and News Guild – Communications Workers of America) to extend the precedent BHB created in Index Newspapers to obtain an injunction against DHS to protect reporters, legal observers, protesters, and people exercising their First Amendment right to record government conduct. The strategies and precedents from Index Newspapers and LA Press Club became the model for similar litigation against DHS in Oregon, Illinois, and other states. 

 Los Angeles Press Club v. Noem, 2:25-cv-05563 (C.D. Cal. 2025); Los Angeles Press Club v. Noem, 2:25-cv-05563 (C.D. Cal. 2025); Los Angeles Press Club v. Noem, 171 F.4th 1179 (9th Cir. 2026)

Kory served as lead counsel in BHB’s four-year litigation against the Massachusetts Department of Correction. For years, the Department had disciplined its incarcerated population based on unreliable field drug tests it performed on legal mail, interfering with the constitutional rights of thousands of incarcerated individuals. In 2021, BHB secured a preliminary injunction prohibiting the Department from relying solely on these tests during the disciplinary process. As part of a 2025 settlement, the Department agreed to permanently stop using the faulty tests and to keep in place a first-of-its-kind Standard Operating Procedure that prohibits officers from disciplining any incarcerated individual based on a field drug test without first confirming the accuracy of the test with a laboratory.

Green, et al. v. Mass. Dep’t Correction, et al., No. 2184CV02283 (Mass. Super. Ct., Suffolk Cty.)

Kory served as lead counsel in a multi-year lawsuit against the City of Huntington Park and the Huntington Park Police Department to stop its illegal practice of holding immigrants for ICE based on ICE detainer requests. In a complete victory for BHB’s clients—and for the tens of thousands of immigrants who pass through Huntington Park—the City agreed to a permanent injunction barring it from future illegal conduct and to make a $74,100 cash donation to the Council of Mexican Federations in North America, a nonprofit immigration advocacy organization, to make amends for its harmful past practices.

Maldonado v. Huntington Park Police Dep’t, Case No. 2:21-cv-05755 (C.D. Cal.)

Kory led an ambitious, multi-year data collection project to help Californians enforce the state’s landmark Racial Justice Act. Together with the ACLU, Kory and his BHB team filed more than 120 complex California PRA requests for policies and data from District Attorneys’ Offices in every county in California, then made that information available to the public for use in research and lawsuits. This data, which has been featured in academic publications and at high-profile conferences, has led to several first-of-their-kind RJA cases in California. As part of this effort, Kory also won lawsuits against several California counties for illegally withholding prosecutorial data. One judgment determined that federal copyright law does not permit counties to ignore California transparency laws—a novel issue in California.

ACLU NorCal v. Andrus, County of Siskiyou, Case No. CVPT 22-475
ACLU NorCal v. Rosell, County of Santa Cruz, Case No. 22CV00970,
ACLU NorCal v. Eyster, County of Mendocino, Case No. 22CV00399
ACLU NorCal v. Rosen, Case No. 25CV478543

As appellate counsel for Stone Brewing Company, Kory helped keep in place the fourth-largest IP trademark infringement jury verdict in history ($56 million). Stone is one of the country’s oldest craft breweries whose STONE® trademark was adopted by MillerCoors’ discount KEYSTONE beer brand. The case raised legal questions regarding the “reverse confusion” infringement doctrine on which Stone’s damages were based.

Stone Brewing Co., LLC v. Molson Coors Beverage Company USA LLC, No. 23-3142 (9th Cir. 2024)
Opposing counsel: Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan

Kory is currently litigating several impact and commercial cases in state and federal courts. Among other clients, Kory represents:

• Manohar Raju, the San Francisco Public Defender, in his fight to ensure that indigent defendants in California receive representation from constitutionally competent counsel.

• United Farm Workers and individual plaintiffs in their effort to stop Kern County’s decade-long practice of coercing indigent defendants to enter uncounseled guilty pleas at arraignment. (UFW Foundation v. The County of Kern, Case No. BCV-23-101419 (Super. Ct. Kern County).)

• Parents and children of pre-trial detainees in Solano County, California, who seek to end the jail’s for-profit practice of denying contact visits for families. (Etter et al. v. Solano County et al.).

Kory is grateful to work alongside the ACLU, Berkeley Law School’s Criminal Law and Justice Center, Civil Rights Corps, Public Justice, Justice Catalyst, CANHR, and several other incredible public interest organizations in these and other important cases.