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Kara Rollins

Litigation Counsel


Kara Rollins, Litigation Counsel, comes to NCLA with experience in vindicating client’s rights from agency overreach and holding the administrative state accountable through government transparency projects.Before joining NCLA, Kara was Counsel for Cause of Action Institute where she represented clients in various Federal Trade Commission enforcement actions. She also engaged in strategic research and oversight of Executive Branch agencies, focusing on administrative rulemaking and government oversight and compliance.Prior to joining the Cause of Action Institute in 2016, she clerked for the Hon. Karen M. Cassidy, A.J.S.C. in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Union Vicinage.Preceding her legal career, Kara served as the Political Programs Manager for the National Federation of Independent Business, where she worked with small business owners throughout the country and learned firsthand about the adverse impact the regulatory state has on individuals.

Kara graduated with honors from Rutgers College, Rutgers University with a B.A. in Political Science in 2007, and cum laude from Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law in 2014. During law school, she was a member of The Catholic University Law Review and a Moot Court Associate for the Seigenthaler-Sutherland Cup National First Amendment Moot Court Competition.

Kara is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, New York, and New Jersey, as well as to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Her work has been published on The Hill.com.

Not licensed in Virginia; admitted to practice in New Jersey, New York, D.C., and select federal jurisdictions.

Have the SEC’s Delay Tactics Made Its Petition for Rulemaking Process Vulnerable to Challenge? A Look at In re Coinbase Inc. and SEC’s Nullification of 5 U.S.C. § 553(e) by Inaction

By: Kara Rollins May 3, 2023
Last week, Coinbase launched its first counteroffensive against the Securities Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) aggressive enforcement posturing in the cryptoeconomy. The cryptocurrency trading platform filed a petition for writ of mandamus asking the Third Circuit to make the SEC act on its petition for rulemaking. The filing raises important questions about administrative power in several respects including agency…
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When Your SEC Prosecutor Is Your Judge, Scandals Surely Follow

By: Kara Rollins August 3, 2022
“Agencies that combine enforcement and adjudication—as many do—are unconstitutional. But convenient for the government,” law blogger Glenn Harlan Reynolds posted earlier this year. For those who follow SEC enforcement, particularly adjudication by in-house administrative law judges, two recent cases from the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit may change all that. Michelle Cochran, a…
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The Thing No One Is Talking About Post-AMG

By: Kara Rollins June 10, 2022
Kara Rollins
Photo: The Apex Building, headquarters of the Federal Trade Commission, on Constitution Avenue and 7th Streets in Washington, D.C.   A little over a year ago, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in AMG Capital Management, LLC v. Federal Trade Commission. In that case, the Court determined that Section 13(b) of the Federal Trade…
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