COLLEEN KENNEY, founder and head of Sidley’s eDiscovery and Data Analytics group, is a trial lawyer and one of the country’s preeminent authorities on eDiscovery.
Colleen has more than 30 years of experience representing clients as first chair in complex mass tort, products liability, financial, securities, and antitrust class action litigation. As an experienced litigator who has litigated cases across many disparate industries, Colleen combines her extensive experience and knowledge to craft efficient and creative solutions for her clients. Colleen has successfully argued a significant number of motions at all stages of litigation, including complex Daubert motions, class certification, and discovery motion practice. Her trial experience includes fact and expert witnesses. She excels at having a practical and inclusive approach at all stages of a case, ensuring that strategic decisions regarding discovery are considered and resolved in light of the substantive issues in the litigation from the very start of the case.
Colleen is able to use her learnings from her wide breadth of subject matter in class actions to innovate, bringing successful ideas from one area to another. Colleen was most recently the first chair for various explosion and fire cases, leading a team of lawyers and expert witnesses that resulted in a successful resolution of all matters. She, along with the Sidley team, settled the class of about 28,000 residents of the town for far less than Plaintiffs originally sought. Immediately before that, she ran a multi-year employment class action case where she was able to reduce the client’s costs significantly by proposing to the Court a case management methodology most often seen in products cases. That matter settled for a small fraction of the original demand, in large part due to successfully defeating class certification.
Colleen is the current co-chair 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 (2021–2024) and in Chambers Global (2022–2025) for USA E-Discovery & Information Governance. Colleen is also recognized in Who’s Who Legal, most recently in 2023 as a Thought Leader for USA - Commercial Litigation - E-Discovery, as an Illinois Super Lawyer, and as a Top 100 High Stakes Litigator.