October 21, 2026
Willkie partner Kristin Bender has been profiled as a Rising Star honoree at the 2026 D.C. Legal Awards, presented by The National Law Journal and Law.com. The Rising Star awards recognize D.C.’s 40 most promising lawyers age 40 and under.
Kristin, a partner in the Litigation Department and a member of the Crisis Management Group and the Strategic Motions & Appeals Group, was named a Rising Star in the General Litigation category. In the Q&A profile, she discussed her career milestones, the keys to her success, and the importance of mentoring.
The profile highlighted Kristin’s work as a key member of the Willkie team that represented Blake Lively in her high-profile litigation with Justin Baldoni, Lively’s co-star and director of It Ends With Us. She helped defeat Baldoni’s $400 million defamation countersuit and secured a precedent-setting award of legal fees and costs in the closely watched case.
Kristin noted that she learned early in her career how to apply her individual talents and skills, including a vigilant attention to detail, to complement her colleagues’ strengths and support team success. She also stressed the benefit of pushing yourself beyond familiar work and expanding your playbook to be a problem solver in complex, high-stakes disputes.
“I say yes to new opportunities – the newer, the better,” Kristin said. “Trying unfamiliar things has given me a deep bench of experience to draw on for cases without obvious answers.”
Kristin served as law clerk for the Hon. Richard C. Wesley on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Hon. Lawrence J. Vilardo on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York. She emphasized the impact that Judge Vilardo had on her early in career, setting the standard for excellence in the law: “His example shows that mentorship is not separate from the work, but part of doing it well.”
View the Rising Stars of the 2026 D.C. Legal Awards here.
