John J. Kenney is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers and formerly the Executive U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Prior to joining the firm in 2007, he was a partner at Simpson Thacher and Bartlett, specializing in complex civil and criminal litigation, government investigations, and corporate governance and compliance law.

Mr. Kenney served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York for nine years (1971-1980), the last three as the Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney. He became a Partner at Simpson Thacher in 1981.

Mr. Kenney has extensive experience in state and federal trials and appeals in both civil and criminal cases. His trials have included securities fraud, breach of contract and product liability cases. He has tried cases in 16 state and various federal courts, the great majority of which were jury trials, and argued appeals in the United States Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Fifth and Eighth Circuits and various state appellate courts.

Mr. Kenney has conducted internal corporate investigations, including allegations of securities fraud, violations of the Investment Company Act of 1940 and the Investment Advisors Act and bank fraud. He has represented clients before various government agencies including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of Government Ethics. He has represented witnesses before various federal and state grand juries relating to securities fraud, anti-trust and environmental violations and other matters.

He has experience in foreign litigation issues including requests between foreign governments and the United States in aid of criminal investigations. He has also represented clients in connection with foreign criminal investigations including criminal tax charges by the Republic of Italy. Mr. Kenney has represented a number of witnesses in hearings and investigations by the committees of U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate.

Mr. Kenney has served as the American College of Trial Lawyers Chair of the Committee on the Federal Rules of Evidence and is currently a member of the Committee on the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. He is formerly a member of the New York Departmental Disciplinary Committee, Appellate Division, First Department. He is a former member of the Executive Committee of the New York State Bar Association and presently Vice-President of the New York State Bar Foundation, formerly President of the Federal Bar Council and President of the New York County Lawyers’ Association, and he is the former Chair of the Committee on Criminal Law of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

Mr. Kenney is listed in Best Lawyers in America (Corporate Governance and Compliance Law and Criminal Defense/White Collar Crime) and Super Lawyers in New York. He is a published author on legal topics.

Mr. Kenney is active in various charitable and educational institutions. He is a Director of the Fordham Law School Alumni Association and a Director of the American Association for the International Commission of Jurists, Inc. He is a Trustee of Bennington College, Vermont, a Director of Poetry Foundation, Chicago, Illinois and Chair of its Audit Committee and a past Trustee of Historic Deerfield, Inc., in Deerfield, Massachusetts. He is the Vice President of the New York Bar Foundation.

He received his B.A. from St. Michael’s College in 1966 and his J.D. from Fordham University Law School in 1969.