Education:
- Harvard University A.B. (cum laude) 1963
- Stanford Law School J.D. 1966 (Law Review Board of Editors 1964-66)
Judge Kennedy brings to his dispute resolution practice over 45 years of experience as a judicial officer and as a practicing attorney. No one in the Intermountain area exceeds the length of his involvement in ADR matters as an advocate, mediator, and arbitrator. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, he serves parties primarily throughout the West.
Areas of Practice
While on the bench of the Utah State District Court, Judge Kennedy was asked by other Judges to mediate difficult and complex pending civil cases. Over the years, as a lawyer and as a Judge, he developed extensive experience in hearing and settling cases in a wide variety of fields including contracts, medical and legal malpractice, real estate, wrongful termination, probate, adoption, and guardianship matters, construction cases, insurance coverage and bad faith claims, personal injury suits, business disputes, labor-management conflicts, civil rights claims, family law and domestic relations, taxation matters, and property boundary conflicts.
Professional Affiliations, Honors, and Training:
- Admitted to the Bar in 1966
- Av rated 1978 (Martindale-Hubbell’s highest rating for lawyers)
- Member American Bar Association, Judicial and Dispute Resolution Sections
- Member Utah State Bar Ass’n (Litigation and ADR Sections), and Salt Lake County Bar Ass’n
- Member of the Utah Council on Conflict Resolution
- Fellow of the Advanced Science and Technology Adjudication Resource Center (“ASTAR”)
- Master of the Bench, Aldon Anderson Chapter, American Inns of Court
- Associate Attorney with Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson (Chicago, Illinois)
- Partner in the firms of: Boyden & Kennedy, Nielson & Senior, and Edwards, McCoy & Kennedy (Salt Lake City, Utah)
- Admitted: United States Supreme Court; District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals; Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals; Illinois Supreme Court; Utah Supreme Court; and various tribal courts
Utah State District Court Judge (Third District) for ten-plus years - While serving on the Utah District Court, Judge Kennedy was appointed to handle matters as a tax judge.
- Pepperdine University Straus Institute (“Mediating the Litigated Case”) 2012. (The Straus Institute has been ranked number one nationally in mediation training since 2004)
- Utah State Court Mediation Program
- National Judicial College Mediation Program (“Dispute Resolution Skills”)
- Construction Dispute Resolution Services training program
A Few Examples of ADR and Litigation Experience
- Judge Kennedy litigated and mediated the largest-ever quiet title and partition actions in the United States (involving more than 2,000,000 acres).
- Before taking the bench, he worked with the past-head of the Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service to resolve a century-old inter-tribal dispute involving claims in the eight figure range.
- As a practicing attorney, Judge Kennedy participated in reaching the first mediated Labor-Management agreement for the Washington DC Metropolitan Transit Authority involving more than 7,000 employees and a package in the nine figure range.
- He has arbitrated more than 125 cases.
- Prior to being appointed to the bench, Judge Kennedy prevailed in a trademark case before the US Supreme Court with now Chief-Justice John Roberts representing the opposing party.