COLLEEN KENNEY is a partner in Sidley’s Chicago office. She is a trial lawyer, lead litigation partner and the Chambers ranked founder and head of Sidley’s eDiscovery and Data Analytics group, and is one of the country’s preeminent authorities on eDiscovery.
Colleen has more than 30 years of experience representing clients as first chair in complex financial, antitrust, mass tort, financial, consumer and employment class action litigation. Colleen has litigated class and collective actions that range from consumer fraud claims, antitrust claims, financial fraud, Equal Pay Act and Title VII claims and securities fraud actions. She has also represented clients in complex and multi-districted product liability and mass tort cases. She has extensive experience in assisting clients mediate, arbitrate and litigate complicated and multifaceted contractual and other commercial disputes in a variety of industries, including representing companies in highly intricate fraud and accounting-related internal investigations covering numerous industries and a wide range of financial topics.
Colleen is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Management Accountant. She is a longtime member of the Sedona Conference Working Group on Electronic Discovery, a member of the Electronic Discovery Institute, an active member of the Seventh Circuit E-Discovery Pilot Program on E Discovery, a faculty speaker of the E Discovery Institute and a member of the Duke Law Conference Discovery Proportionality Guidelines Team. Prior to law school, she worked for four years as an auditor for a large public accounting firm.
Colleen has been a faculty member of the Annual Judicial Training Symposium for Federal Judges on behalf of the Electronic Discovery Institute board of directors and the Federal Judicial Center. This program includes views from plaintiffs and requesting parties, in-house counsel, defense counsel, government agency enforcement staff, non-lawyer technology specialists and judges. Described by clients as a “big-picture strategist” and “the most confident voice in the room,” Colleen was ranked in Chambers USA (2021–2022) and in Chambers Global (2022–2023) in E-Discovery & Information Governance section. Colleen was also recognized in Who’s Who Legal: Litigation and as a Top 100 High Stakes Litigators.
Colleen also has extensive experience counseling clients on e-discovery related issues, including the design and implementation of best practices and use of technology in document retention and information production in discovery. She is a published author and frequent speaker in the areas of e-discovery and electronically stored information.