James Kennedy

An accomplished trial and appellate lawyer, Jim Kennedy has won hundreds of millions of dollars for his clients, including large businesses and entrepreneurs, and successfully defended clients in significant commercial matters. His diverse background includes disputes involving business divorce, commercial contracts, fiduciary duties, fraud, patents, trade secrets and other intellectual property, commercial real estate, restrictive covenants, shareholder rights, and partnership obligations. Jim has also tried business disputes before domestic and international arbitration panels.

Early in his career, Jim gained unique, first-hand insight into the appellate process as Law Secretary to the Honorable Bernard S. Meyer, then Senior Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York. Jim is well versed in many aspects of appellate work at the state and federal level. He has argued before the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and other state and federal courts. His recent appellate victories involve the application of the doctrine of “income tax estoppel”; the viability of a “unique” claim that a buyer’s representatives owed fiduciary duties to a seller while temporarily managing the seller’s business prior to the closing of an asset sale; and the propriety of a trial court order piercing the corporate veil of several corporations and holding one of the defendants in contempt of court. He is widely respected both for his written and oral advocacy. Jim is admitted to the Bar of the State of New York, the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, various United States. Courts of Appeal and the Supreme Court of the United States.

Pro Bono/Educational

Jim has for more than two decades provided significant pro support to Gibney Dance Company — a New York based non-profit organization that sponsors its own contemporary dance company, provides residency opportunities and badly needed space (at low cost) to the dance community, curates artistic performances by emerging artists held at its theatre and studios in Manhattan and has pioneered the use of movement to help domestic violence survivors to heal.