Bartlit Beck LLP

Karma is an experienced trial lawyer with a well-known and highly acclaimed practice in antitrust. In her nearly three decades of handling antitrust matters, Karma has represented a broad range of companies in their highest profile antitrust cases. Karma has been a partner at Bartlit Beck since 2001. Before joining the firm in 1999, she was a trial attorney for the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice, where she was a member of the core trial team in United States v. Microsoft.

Since then, she has tried cases for Fortune 500 companies in almost every region of the country. Those cases have included a broad range of bet-the-company litigation, including antitrust, contract, product liability, fraud, and securities cases. Karma has spent nearly a full year in trial days in front of judges and juries in high-stakes antitrust cases alone. Her antitrust trials that have gone to verdict have included monopolization cases and cases alleging unreasonable restraints of trade involving some of the largest companies in the United States. Notably, Karma took a lead role in two antitrust trials for Sabre, a travel distribution platform, including a ten-week federal jury trial in New York brought by US Airways concerning an alleged conspiracy and agreements in the airline ticket distribution market with over $1.4 billion in claimed damages. Most recently, Karma served as lead counsel for consumers in the high-profile antitrust case against Google in the Northern District of California, In re Google Play Antitrust. 

Karma has also tried non-antitrust cases with exposures in the hundreds of millions of dollars, including three product liability cases to a jury for DuPont. Clients have selected Karma to first chair and co-first chair multiple trials, including a large consumer appliance manufacturer (resulting in a six-week jury trial that Karma tried to verdict); OtterBox  (a case with a $100M exposure that settled on extremely favorable terms right before trial); and Bayer (a case that was set for trial in December 2019).

Karma also has extensive experience in class actions, representing both defendants and plaintiffs. The Northern District of California appointed Karma as co-lead interim counsel for a class of consumers in currently pending multi-district antitrust litigation against Google.

Throughout her career, Karma’s representations have included matters as broad as the Canadian government in a case involving civil RICO claims against R.J. Reynolds; Micron Technology in a case against Rambus regarding misconduct in the standard-setting arena; E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Company in products liability trials in Florida; various pharmaceutical companies in confidential mediations and False Claims qui tam cases; Tyco International Ltd. in multiple multi-billion dollar securities and ERISA cases resulting from the conduct of Tyco’s former CEO Dennis Kozlowski and CFO Mark Schwartz; Hewlett-Packard in numerous plaintiff-side antitrust cases; and Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance, Inc. in securities cases against certain underwriter banks regarding the sale of residential mortgage-backed securities in the mid-2000s.

As a trial lawyer in the Honors Program at the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice, Karma worked on both criminal and civil antitrust matters, including merger and non-merger matters. Karma was a member of the team investigating Microsoft's Internet-related conduct in 1996. After participating in the October 1997 case against Microsoft alleging violations of the Consent Decree, she continued as a member of the core trial team in United States v. Microsoft, which was filed in May 1998.

Karma has served as an Adjunct Professor of Antitrust Law at the University of Colorado. She has received various recognitions in industry publications, most recently by Benchmark Litigation as one of the Top 250 Women in Litigation.

She graduated from Stanford Law School Order of the Coif and Magna Cum Laude.

Adjunct Professor of Antitrust Law; University of Colorado Boulder Board of Trustees, Great Outdoors Colorado, http://www.goco.org/about-us Board of Directors, Big City Mountaineers, https://www.bigcitymountaineers.org Coach, Lakewood High School Mock Trial.

Stanford Law School, 1996, J.D., magna cum laude

Order of the Coif

Notes Editor, Stanford Law Review

Moot Court

Vice President, Kirkwood Moot Court Board

Co-Chair, Women of Stanford Law

Santa Clara University, 1993, B.S., Political Science and Spanish, magna cum laude

Phi Beta Kappa

Pi Sigma Alpha, National Political Science Honor Society

Phi Sigma Iota, International Foreign Language Honor Society

Outstanding Woman Leader Award