By Cynthia Price
Legal News
Dancer? Attorney? President of the Western District Federal Bar Association?
In ultimately choosing the second profession, Katherine Smith Kennedy set herself on a path that led to the third — and the opportunity to break ground as the first female to lead the federal association chapter.
The dance world’s loss is the legal profession’s gain.
Katherine Smith Kennedy was already a professional dancer when she decided to go back to her original interest, developed as the daughter of a distinguished local attorney, Ed Smith.
In her childhood, she was the only one of four siblings to show an inclination to follow in her father’s footsteps, but she was also drawn to the arts, and particularly to contemporary dance.
She has been dancing “all my life since the age of four,” and when she decided she wanted to go to the University of Michigan, torn between the two pursuits, she applied in both areas. Even when she was accepted at the dance school, she thought she would only pursue it for a year, but she loved it so much it became the focus of her bachelors degree.
But after several years of dance-company and free-lance work in the Chicago area, Kennedy realized that she did not get much out of the kinds of jobs she was taking — including waitress and arts administrator — to “support my dance habit.”
So she returned to her earlier love of law, receiving her degree from Southern Illinois University. She is now a partner in the firm of Pinsky, Smith, Fayette and Kennedy LLP, and on Oct. 13 at the Amway Grand she started her term as the president of the Western District Chapter of the Federal Bar Association.
About taking over the presidency from Federal Public Defender Ray Kent, Kennedy says,“I was humbled, especially to be the first woman. People were very gracious and so many congratulated me. It was a great way to start off the year.”
Kennedy has made a name for herself as an employment lawyer who pursues justice for people whose rights are impacted by bad actions of employers. She handles such claims as employment discrimination, unpaid overtime, and retaliation against employees who have complained about violations of their rights — cases she says “never go out of style.”
Even though Kennedy has heard that there is likely to be an upcoming liberalization of Federal labor standards, which she regards as merely redressing the whittling away of employees’ rights under the previous administration, she says that may not affect her practice greatly. “I find very blatant violations, not subtle ones,” she says, violations which are unlikely to be the subject of regulatory fine-tuning.
However, her first step when approached by an employee with complaints is to approach the employer and try to work something out. Though she says some such employees could go to the Department of Labor and make a complaint, that is not a requirement, so most people see a lawyer first.
Kennedy also represents unions and participates in collective bargaining and union arbitration.
As an employment attorney Kennedy works primarily with Federal statutes. “I practice in Federal court almost exclusively,” she said. “The other people who are active in the Federal Bar Association are also in Federal court most of their time. Almost half are public defenders, but there are also some other specialty practices, like securities, which come mostly under Federal law.”
The Federal Bar Association for the Western District of Michigan, which is composed of the western half of the Lower Peninsula and the entire Upper Peninsula, is an authorized chapter of the national Federal Bar Association. The mission of both is “to strengthen the federal legal system and administration of justice by serving the interests and the needs of the federal practitioner, both public and private, the federal judiciary and the public they serve.”
Kennedy said that when she was in Washington DC in April for a pre-presidential training, she was favorably impressed by how well the Western District chapter does in terms of attracting members. Membership development it is not her highest priority.
“Our focus is threefold: to provide expellent continuing legal education programs,” Kennedy says, “to offer opportunities to network and build relationships in our legal community, and to provide and support programs for our local community.”
Specifically, the chapter annually supports the “We the People” essay contest winner in attending the national competition, provides services for Law Day, and runs the far-reaching Hillman Advocacy Program (see calendar page 2). Kennedy serves as faculty for the Hillman training.
Brown bag lunches touch on Federal Bar issues, often in an entertaining way. For example, a late-winter session will feature Neil Flynn, author of a book about the early 1970s Curt Flood trial, which helped establish free agency in baseball.
The group also does two pro bono sessions, one a training and the other about representation opportunities within the Federal Bar. The Federal Bar has a pro bono program to help Federal prisoners with their cases.
A high point of the year is a bench bar conference held in Shanty Creek, which promotes collegiality among those in the Federal legal community.
Kennedy’s voice becomes more passionate when she talks about the program for next year’s conference, which features New York attorney Ray Dowd presenting on Holocaust Art. Dowd has been active in representing Jewish families whose art was taken from them under the Nazi regime and sold to museums around the world. Some of the artwork under consideration is “as close as the Detroit Institute of Art,” Kennedy says.
This combination of the worlds of art and law is exciting for Kennedy. She continued to dance in Grand Rapids after getting her law degree and joining her current firm until she became pregnant with her first daughter about six years ago. (Her second daughter is now four.) She was part of the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts dance troupe and danced with the Tito Hernandez company.
She still works closely with arts organizations, especially the Grandville Academy of Arts, where she can also “get my kids involved.”
Kennedy is a former chair of the Grand Rapids Bar Labor and Employment Section, and has been a member of the Federal Bar Association executive committee for several years. She notes that the Federal Bar chapter officers’ work load “is quite significant compared to a section leader’s.”
Even before taking that on, since the birth of her first child, she has been lucky enough to have a flexible work schedule, for which she is grateful to advances in technology as well as her great partners at the firm.
Other 2010 officers of the Western District Federal Bar Association are: Scott Brinkmeyer, President-Elect; Ronald M. Stella, Vice-President/Operations; Sarah Howard, Vice-President/
Programs; Jennifer McManus, Secretary; Ronald G. DeWaard, Treasurer. The national delegate is Tim VerHey.
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