Profile: Michael Kenny

Competition

Biography: Competition

Michael Kenny is a partner and trial lawyer at Alston & Bird, working principally in the areas of complex commercial litigation, especially antitrust, telecommunications, business and class action litigation.

In recent years, Mr Kenny has served as lead trial counsel in cases across the United States. His clients have included Safeco Corporation, Verizon, BellSouth, AutoZone, UPS, Fresenius, Equifax, Caremark, International Paper, Continental Carbon Company, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sabre and Coram Healthcare. He has handled cases covering a broad range of commercial disputes: antitrust, patent and copyright infringement, securities, insurance, RICO, accountant's liability, corporate governance, telecommunications, product liability, environmental pollution, constitutional law and state fraud and deceptive trade practices.

Mr Kenny has represented a number of companies as plaintiffs, including telecommunications and life sciences companies. Recently, he won a judgment of US$318 million on behalf of his client - a high-tech start-up - in a jury trial in federal court in North Carolina. On appeal, the case settled for US$180 million. He also has extensive experience defending companies in class action litigation throughout the United States. He has defended major corporations in more than 100 class action lawsuits, with numerous significant victories at both trial and appellate level.

Mr Kenny has served as lead appellate counsel in many federal and state cases, including the US Supreme Court, and has also represented Fortune 500 companies, the Georgia Republican Party and the late senator, Paul Coverdell, in an unsuccessful attempt by his opponents to overturn the results of a US Senate election.