Irene Ten Cate

Biography

Irene Ten Cate is an Associate Professor of Legal Writing and serves as Co-Director of the Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law. Professor Ten Cate’s scholarship focuses on features of, and values promoted by, adjudication by courts and international arbitration tribunals. More recently, her research interests have expanded into legal reasoning and legal writing pedagogy. Professor Ten Cate has published several articles and blog posts, presented at numerous conferences, and served as an external reviewer for peer-reviewed law journals. She is actively involved in initiatives that further the development of legal writing as an academic discipline and currently serves as the Editor in Chief of Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute.

The recipient of a J.D. from Columbia Law School and an LL.B. degree from the University of Amsterdam, Professor Ten Cate practiced law in New York City for almost a decade. She was most recently an associate at Jenner & Block, where she specialized in commercial litigation and international dispute resolution and maintained an active pro bono practice with a focus on asylum law. Earlier in her career, Professor Ten Cate practiced as a transactional attorney in Brussels and interned with the ICC Court of International Arbitration in Paris. She is a native Dutch speaker and speaks French, German, and Spanish at varying levels of proficiency.

Professor Ten Cate is an avid amateur cellist. She has performed on the stages of Carnegie Hall, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and the Beijing Concert Hall, but also in schools, nursing homes, a high-security prison, and town squares all over Europe.