In recognition and appreciation of his outstanding leadership, accomplishments, and contributions to our firm, our clients, the bar, and the community, we continue to post the biography of James Kenny to remind us all of his remarkable career and the origins of our law firm.
Mr. Kenny was a founding partner of Kenny Nachwalter, which later merged with Sperling & Slater to become Sperling Kenny Nachwalter. He passed away in December 2011. Mr. Kenny began practicing law at a Miami firm that represented plaintiffs and defendants in personal injury cases, where he maintained a small but varied commercial litigation practice. He had approximately 25 jury trials and several nonjury trials during his first two years in practice. After litigating against the Dade County Attorney’s Office, he was offered a position as Assistant Dade County Attorney. During his two years in that position, he had about 15 jury trials, all successful, in eminent domain cases for Dade County and other public bodies. He was then recruited as a partner to handle eminent domain cases by what became Kelly, Black, Black & Kenny, P.A., and was drafted to help litigate an antitrust case. After a successful 91-day jury trial in that antitrust case with Michael Nachwalter and Hugo L. Black, Jr., he quickly developed a complex commercial litigation practice that included antitrust cases. After 10 years as a partner, he left the Kelly Black firm with Michael Nachwalter and Tom Seymour to form Kenny Nachwalter & Seymour. The three practiced together for 36 years.
Mr. Kenny was a fierce courtroom advocate and an outstanding trial lawyer with approximately 75 jury and 25 nonjury trials. His extensive experience in complex commercial litigation included several important and successful cases as a Special Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust for the State of Florida and a wide variety of cases, including business torts, contracts, partnerships, fiduciary duty, insurance coverage and bad faith, and other complex commercial cases. He handled complex commercial cases in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, and Illinois and was counsel of record in approximately 70 reported cases. With a brilliant mind, sharp wit, impeccable character, and integrity, he was revered in the legal community for his leadership and professionalism.
In 1988, responding to a crisis in the availability of lawyers’ professional liability insurance, The Florida Bar undertook the formation of its own professional liability company, Florida Lawyers Mutual Insurance Company. Mr. Kenny participated in that project and served as a company’s director from 1989 until 2003, as chair of the Reinsurance and Underwriting Committees, and as a member of the Executive, Investment, Underwriting and Claims Committees. In 1996, along with representatives of bar-related insurers in several other states, he formed the Lawyers Reinsurance Company (Lawyers Re) and served as a director and member of the Underwriting Committee of Lawyers Re.
In his last few years of practice, Mr. Kenny served as an arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association (AAA), NASD Dispute Resolution, and the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution. He also served on the AAA’s Panel for Arbitration of Disputes arising from the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympic Games and the AAA’s Large and Complex Case Panel.
He was admitted in the U.S. District Courts in the Middle and Southern Districts of Florida, the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal for the Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits, and the Supreme Court of the United States. He was a member of numerous legal organizations, including the American Bar Association. He also served on and chaired the Eminent Domain and Antitrust and Trade Regulation Advisory Committees of the Florida Bar.
In 1988, Mr. Kenny was elected to membership in the American Law Institute. He was rated “AV” by Martindale-Hubbell every year since 1978 and was listed in Best Lawyers of America for Business, Antitrust and Commercial Litigation annually from 1987-2007.