Washington Update

Kate Hudson is Deputy Vice President and Counsel for Government Relations and Public Policy at Association of American Universities (AAU). Kate assists in managing and directing the Government Relations and Public Policy department and developing and executing strategies to advance AAU’s advocacy and public policy priorities in the federal legislative and regulatory arenas. Her portfolio includes intellectual property, technology transfer, open and public access, export controls, sexual harassment, data privacy, and copyright issues. In addition, she supports AAU’s policy and federal relations work in areas that require legal expertise, such as tax issues related to research, labor and employment, research security policy, higher education Title IX issues, and other regulatory matters important to America’s leading research universities. Kate also leads AAU’s General Counsels (GC) constituent group and the CFR Tax Task Force.   

Prior to joining AAU, Kate served in the U.S. federal government as a senior attorney-advisor in the legislative and executive branches, most recently with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). At GAO, she provided legal counsel on a range of issues including interagency governance bodies, federal financial management, legislative drafting, and technical advice to Congress. Before her work at GAO, Kate served as an attorney-advisor with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), as both an administrative litigator before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and regulatory counsel. Additionally, she served as agency counsel for three years in the federal litigation surrounding the 2015 OPM cyberbreach case (In re: OPM, 928 F.3d 42 (D.C. Cir. 2019), the largest federal class action privacy lawsuit in U.S. history. Before serving at OPM, she was the inaugural director of the Executive branch CXO Fellows Program at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and as a key member of the Office of Government-wide Policy (OGP) providing programmatic support to the Office of the Chief Information Security Officer (OCIO), the Office of Federal Financial Management (OFFM), and the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) at the U.S. Office of Management & Budget (OMB).   

An active volunteer, Kate is a member of the Military Spouse JD Network (MSJDN), the Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia (WBA), and Women in Government Relations (WGR). She also provides pro bono legal services to District of Columbia residents through Whitman-Walker Health and the District of Columbia Bar Association Volunteer Lawyers Project.   

She holds a master’s degree in public administration and policy from American University; a law degree from the University of Dayton School of Law; and both a master’s and bachelor’s degree in political science from Ohio University. She is licensed to practice law in Georgia, North Carolina, and the District of Columbia.

Lucy France serves as the General Counsel for the University of Montana, part of the Montana University System under the governance of the Montana Board of Regents. She is primarily responsible for the legal affairs of the university, including all colleges, schools, units and its affiliate campuses. Her work includes the wide array of complex legal matters that face a large public research university. She also oversees the University Compliance Office, the ADA/504 Coordinator, University Policies and the Public Records function. 

Lucy previously served as the Equal Opportunity Director for the University. Before she joined the University in 2008, Lucy spent 13 years and was elevated to be a partner with the Missoula law firm Garlington, Lohn & Robinson. Immediately after law school, she served as a law clerk to the Honorable James F. Battin of the United States District Court for the District of Montana.  

Lucy is an adjunct instructor at the University’s Alexander Blewett III School of Law. She has served on the Board of Directors of the National Association of College and University Attorneys (2017-2020), and currently serves as Secretary of the NACUA Board of Directors. She has received the J.B. Speer Award for Distinguished Administrative Service at the University of Montana. 

Lucy earned her B.A. from the University of California-Berkeley, and her J.D. from the University of Montana School of Law, with honors.  

Emmanual A. Guillory is an advocate, policy expert, and motivational speaker who currently serves as the senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education (ACE). In this role, he manages an extensive portfolio of legislative and regulatory issues as a primary government relations resource for the broader higher education community to the United States Congress, the White House, the United States Department of Education, and other agencies as warranted. His portfolio includes an emphasis on the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA), especially Title IV programs, and the budget and appropriations process. Other issues in his portfolio include accreditation, college costs, student aid, institutional accountability, institutional aid in Titles III and V of the HEA, oversight, privacy, technology, accessibility, and disability, among others. Previously, Guillory served as the director of student and institutional aid policy at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, leading the private, nonprofit sector of higher education on policies such as student financial aid, and institutional aid programs in Titles III and V of the HEA. He also served as the director for public policy and government affairs at UNCF (United Negro College Fund, Inc.) for two years. He worked for a decade in the House of Representatives, most recently as a staff member on the Committee on Education and the Workforce. He was recognized as one of The Hill’s top lobbyists in Washington, DC in both 2020 and 2021 and as a top executive by Marquis Who’s Who. He was a federal negotiator for the Department of Education in 2019 and 2022 and a former president of the Committee for Education Funding in 2022. He has his own nonprofit organization through which he awards scholarships to students, and he serves as a lecturer with the Archer Fellowship Program in The University of Texas System. Guillory earned his bachelor of science in psychology from Texas A&M University, and serves on its leadership council through The Association of Former Students of Texas A&M University. He obtained his master of arts in college student personnel from Bowling Green State University (BGSU). He serves on BGSU’s Alumni Board of Directors and the leadership council in its College of Education and Human Development. He is currently pursuing his doctorate of education in higher education management at the University of Pennsylvania.