Kathryn W. Drey brings more than 28 years of legal experience to Boyer Law Firm, built across private practice at leading Alabama firms, in-house counsel work for a major public university, and nearly eight years of federal service with the U.S. Department of Justice. She counsels businesses, nonprofits, educational institutions, and mission-driven organizations through complex disputes, regulatory challenges, and governance needs at every stage.
Kathryn began her career as a litigator with Mobile-based firms, developing a foundation in labor and employment, medical malpractice, insurance defense, ERISA, and business litigation. She then spent more than seven years as Assistant General Counsel at the University of South Alabama, a 15,000-student, 5,000-employee institution, where she handled litigation and transactional matters across civil rights, Title IX, EEO, athletics compliance, student and patient privacy, and environmental and workplace safety regulation. That work also gave her deep experience in institutional policy development, staff training, and compliance program design.
Returning to private practice, Kathryn was a Partner at Ball, Ball, Matthews & Novak and later Of Counsel at Jones Walker LLP, where she continued her employment, civil rights, healthcare regulatory, fraud, and appellate work.
In 2015, she joined the U.S. Department of Justice as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Florida, serving in several concurrent leadership roles. As Civil Chief she managed the office’s civil division attorneys, litigation docket, and investigations; as Affirmative Civil Enforcement Coordinator she built and led its health care and procurement fraud enforcement practice. Her federal docket ranged from civil rights and employment matters to personal injury, privacy and FOIA, immigration, contract disputes, and appeals. She also taught civil litigation at the National Advocacy Center and served on the DOJ E-Discovery Task Force.
At Boyer Law Firm, Kathryn applies that breadth to litigation, transactional support, and organizational governance, with particular depth in employment, civil rights, healthcare, and compliance.
Kathryn earned her Doctor of Jurisprudence from Tulane School of Law and her Bachelor of Arts in Economics from The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. She is a member of the Alabama State Bar and has been active in the American Bar Association, the Alabama Defense Lawyers Association, the National Association of College and University Attorneys, and the American Inns of Court.
Outside the office, Kathryn treasures time with her husband, four children, and grandson, and finds joy in cooking, traveling, and the outdoors along the bayous of southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle.
*Ms. Drey’s practice is limited to Alabama law.
