The MBA is pleased to announce that Victoria Reggie Kennedy will
deliver the keynote address at its Annual Dinner on Thursday, May
31, at the Westin Boston Waterfront.
"We are honored to have Victoria Kennedy -- a compassionate leader
and esteemed attorney with a demonstrated commitment to the
administration of justice -- share her encouraging message at our
premier event of the association year," MBA President Richard P.
Campbell said.
In addition to the keynote address, the event will also feature
the 2012 Legislator of the Year Award to Speaker Robert A. DeLeo
and the presentation of the Annual Access to Justice Awards.
The wife of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Mrs. Kennedy is
co-founder and president of the Board of Trustees of the Edward M.
Kennedy Institute for the United State Senate in Boston. The
institute was established to invigorate public discourse, encourage
participatory democracy and inspire the next generation of citizens
and leaders.
Kennedy has served in a hands-on capacity throughout the
institute's development and endowment campaign and continues to
spearhead the design, planning, oversight and building of the
40,000 square-foot institute to be located on the campus of UMass
Boston, adjacent to the John F. Kennedy Library.
Kennedy received her law degree, summa cum laude, from
Tulane University School of Law in New Orleans. She began her legal
career as a law clerk for Judge Robert Sprecher in the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. She then practiced
law in the private sector for nearly two decades, with special
emphasis on the federal and state regulation of domestic commercial
banks and savings and loan institutions.
Throughout her distinguished career in the law, she delivered a
creative and strategic approach to the practice of law. She
established, launched and served as the managing partner of Smith,
Raclin and Hirasuna, a Washington D.C.-based boutique law firm that
eventually merged into Keck Mahin and Cate. She devised innovative
strategies for recapitalization, reorganization and regulatory
compliance in the successful representation of commercial banks and
savings and loan associations.
Kennedy successfully restructured and renegotiated complex loan
transactions on behalf of both banks and borrowers and represented
officers and directors of financial institutions before state and
federal regulatory agencies. She also served of counsel with
Greenberg Traurig and earlier as an associate attorney with Caplin
& Drysdale in Washington D.C., and Mayer Brown in
Chicago.
Kennedy has served in key strategic and political roles on issues
ranging from health and education to labor, especially as those
issues affect women and children, and she advocates for involvement
in the political process.
In 1994, she established the Massachusetts Women's Council during
the election campaign, which served as a model for women's councils
in other campaigns around the country. Kennedy was actively
involved in the passage of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 and
stood at President Barack Obama's side at the signing of the bill
into law. She continues to discuss the benefits of the law to
constituency groups around the country.
She serves on the boards of the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts, the National Leadership Roundtable on Church
Management and the Boston-based organization Catholic
Democrats.
In recognition of her leadership and management expertise, she has
received numerous awards including honorary doctorates from leading
universities and law schools.
Some of her other Boston-based roles include current service as a
distinguished professor and mentor at the University of
Massachusetts and as a member of the Board of Overseers of the
Museum of Fine Arts Boston. She divides her time between Boston and
Washington, D.C.