White Arnold & Dowd, P.C.
2025 3rd Avenue N., Suite 500
Birmingham, AL 35203
(205)323-1888 /  

Kitty is a 2005 graduate of the University of Alabama School of Law. She also graduated summa cum laude from Samford University with a BA in History and Spanish. She is an associate at White Arnold & Dowd, P.C. and practices in the areas of Complex Civil Litigation and White Collar Criminal Defense.

Ms. Brown is not only affiliated with the American Bar Association, but also with the Alabama State Bar, where she is in the Executive Committee of the Young Lawyers Section, the Committee on Volunteer Lawyers/Access to Legal Services, the Women’s Section, and was a Pilot Program Participant with the Mentoring Program. Kitty has been involved in the Birmingham Bar Association with the Young Lawyers Section, the Women’s Section, the Scholarship Committee, and the Public Service Committee, as well as the Birmingham Inns of Court. In 2011, she received the Alabama Super Lawyers Rising Star Award and the Samford University Outstanding Young Alumnus Award. She was also honored in 2009 with the Birmingham Bar Association Future Leaders Forum. She is affiliated with The Junior League of Birmingham as the President’s Society Co-Chair, and is a 2010 graduate of the Junior League of Birmingham’s Leadership Institute. She is on Samford University’s Alumni Council Activities Board, the Junior Board of the YMCA of Birmingham, Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama School of Law Farrah Law Alumni Society, the Preschool Advisory Committee at St. Mary’s-on-the-Highlands Episcopal Church, a Junior Patron with the Birmingham Museum of Art, on the Mountain Brook City Schools Early Warning Panel, and in the Crestline Mums Garden Club.

The attorney who recommended Kitty said, “I would like to add an observation from when I first met Kitty as a law student. For several years before Kitty started law school, UA School of Law hosted an annual women’s leadership event. The event is quite large, renown, anxiously awaited by women students, and generously sponsored by alums. However, when Kitty was in law school, it was large, renown, and operated on a shoestring budget. I and a few students planned the event – and bought, prepared and served the food for 100+ guests. The handful of students who worked on this event labored mightily to make it happen. Kitty was one of the leaders of this group. I will always remember Kitty showing up with mass quantities of gourmet appetizers left from a party her parents hosted the night before our event, and Kitty, with her charming mother, ironing tablecloths in one of the law school classrooms, hours before the event. At the time Kitty was putting in huge amounts of time on this event, she was busier than almost anyone else in the law school. Not only was she talking a full law school load, but she was also serving as a Senior Editor of The Alabama Law Review, preparing for an upcoming, tough regional Moot Court competition, doing extensive community service (80 hours to earn the Order of Samaritan and Dean’s Award for Community Service while in law school), and active in the Bench and Bar Society and the Order of Barristers. I find Kitty’s leadership in the women’s event revealing in this sense. Kitty worked, and worked hard, on this event because she cared about it, and because Kitty always does a terrific job at whatever she does. Work on this event was behind the scenes and in-the-trenches. There was no notoriety, no recognition, no accolades for those who made it happen. It was an opportunity for me to see true character. I have kept up with Kitty after her law school graduation and called on her many times. She was a “mentee” in the state bar’s Mentoring program which I helped organize. At the mentoring committee’s request, Kitty spoke at a state bar meeting about the mentoring program. If I need to know which restaurant in Birmingham is appropriate to hold a meeting, or find out how a former student is doing, I check with Kitty. She is one of the most reliable people I know.”

In her own words, Kitty says, “I grew up on a farm in rural northwest Alabama, and now live in the largest metropolitan area in the state. I believe that this diversity of experience gives me a unique perspective on the practice which would be valuable to Class 8. While I understand how a mid-sized, urban firm operates, I am eager to learn about different practice cultures across the state. I am interested in personal, leadership and professional development, and I have been delighted by the number of opportunities for growth in these areas offered in Birmingham. However, I have been surprised at how few of those opportunities are available to young professionals on a statewide level. I believe the Leadership Forum meets a great need for Alabama’s young lawyers, many of whom share my desire to work for the change and betterment of our profession and community now and for the future. I have worked hard to ensure that my name is associated not only with solid legal reasoning, but also with sound ethics and a right moral compass. It is important to me that attorneys are seen and known outside the courthouse, and to that end I am heavily involved in community outreach effort. During the leadership course at Samford University, our professor shared a quote with the class that has since become one of my life’s guiding principles:

My life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is a privilege to do for it whatsoever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment; and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

Granted, Mr. Shaw’s words have a different import now than they did when I was an undergraduate student. But the truth in this quote remains: our lives are not our own. As we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, we should spend our days and years making the world a little brighter for those who will come after us. We are built for community. Through working with others, we can collectively make gains in alleviating the injustice and pain that so many suffer. My family has chosen to focus our service on women and children’s issues. Though we do not have a great deal of “treasure” to share at this point in our professional careers, we bring our time, energy, and enthusiasm to the projects we work with. Stephen Karanja is a four-year-old boy in famine-gripped Kenya. Our family is honored to sponsor him through Compassion International. Writing Stephen is a true family affair – even our toddlers draw pictures for him! We also work with Compassion to heighten awareness of the organization and enlist others in the fight for children world-wide. Being a part of Class 8 of the Leadership Forum would benefit me on a personal as well as professional level. On a personal level, I would welcome the opportunity to learn from our Bar’s best. I will work hard to make sure that I am taking every opportunity the Leadership Forum has to offer, while also contributing to Class 8 as an active and willing participant. On a professional level, I believe the Leadership Forum would allow me to explore my own leadership strengths and develop new competencies, as well as invest in the other Forum participants and developing meaningful relationships throughout the state.”