Florida’s First Domestic Violence Unit
As a young prosecutor, Kathy created the state’s first domestic violence unit — setting the template for how Florida responds to abuse and protects victims.
Her Story
From Miami-Dade classrooms to the courthouse
Kathy’s path runs through every corner of this community — its public schools, its university, and a prosecutor’s office she would one day lead.
Though born in Washington, D.C., in 1950, Katherine Fernandez Rundle’s story is a Miami-Dade story. She is a proud graduate of Miami Palmetto Senior High School, and this community has been at the center of her life and career ever since.
Kathy went on to earn both a B.A. and an M.A. in Criminology from the University of Miami before crossing the Atlantic to earn her law degree — an LL.B. from the University of Cambridge in England. That uncommon blend of local roots and world-class legal training would shape everything that followed.
Her courtroom career began where it continues today: inside the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. Over fifteen years as an assistant state attorney, Kathy rose to become chief assistant to then-State Attorney Janet Reno and served as legal counsel to the Miami-Dade County Grand Jury. In that era she created Florida’s first domestic violence unit, helped establish Dade County’s Drug Court, Truancy Intervention Program, and Juvenile Assessment Center, and helped write and pass the Florida Punishment Code.
In January 1993, Kathy was sworn in as State Attorney — making history as the first Hispanic woman and first Cuban-American to hold the office in Florida. Thirty-plus years and six re-elections later, in 2024, she qualified for a seventh term unopposed and won — a measure of the trust this community continues to place in her.
“I am honored to serve the people of Miami-Dade — every victim, every family, every neighborhood. That trust is what this office is built on.”