Kendra L. Stead

KENDRA STEAD focuses on the creative and calculated representation of companies and professional services firms in commercial disputes, securities litigation, professional liability actions, and mass torts. She has earned impressive and consistent results for a number of Fortune 500 companies, U.S. and international accounting firms and individuals. Kendra speaks Spanish and has represented companies and accounting firms in Latin America in internal investigations and disputes.

Kendra is experienced in every aspect of litigation from pre-litigation counseling to appeals. A skilled cross examiner and inquisitive listener, Kendra excels both at questioning adverse witnesses and at preparing her own witnesses to testify before regulators, at deposition, and at trial. Kendra is equally comfortable preparing line-level employees, C-suite executives, and expert witnesses for testimony. Owing in part to her five years of working as a mathematics teacher before law school, Kendra is skilled at distilling complicated topics for presentation to courts, mediators, regulators, and juries.

Kendra’s representative matters include:

• Represents two automaker defendants in federal consolidated purported class actions alleging defects in airbag inflators.
• Represented plaintiff in federal trial in the Eastern District of Michigan on breach of contract and other claims related to enforcement of promissory notes.
• Member of trial team that secured a full defense verdict on behalf of a leading company in marine industry after three-week trial in Delaware Superior Court in connection with post-transaction dispute.
• Represented a medical device sterilization company in a series of cases involving allegations that the gas used for sterilization caused plaintiffs’ cancer; member of trial team that obtained a full defense verdict in a jury trial in which the plaintiff sought a nine-figure damages award.
• Obtained favorable appellate ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit leading to entry of a judgment in excess of US$750 million in favor of agent of a commercial lending group; represents agent in enforcement proceedings in federal district court.
• Represented a major accounting firm in federal securities class action in the Southern District of New York and related direct action and derivative lawsuits involving, among others, claims under Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933.
• Briefed and argued a matter before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit resulting in affirmance of an US$11 million attorney fee award.
• Secured dismissal of a putative securities class action against a Fortune 500 Company and several of its directors alleging claims under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado and won affirmance of dismissal on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
• Secured complete dismissal of complaint alleging fraud- and negligence-based claims against professional services firm and asserting more than US$60 million in losses.
• Represented Chicago Loop Parking LLC (an asset owned by Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners) in an arbitration resulting in a US$62 million judgment in favor of our client, which was contested in the Circuit Court of Cook County and affirmed by the Illinois Appellate Court.

Kendra was named to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Emerging Leaders Class of 2021. This program selects a cohort of community-minded Chicago professionals with an interest in international affairs to participate in a year-long program designed to deepen their knowledge of global affairs and policy, and then to apply those lessons in their professional and civic lives.

Kendra serves as a member of the firm’s Technology Committee and is active in Sidley’s training, mentoring and recruiting programs.

Kendra maintains an active pro bono practice. She concentrates her pro bono work on assisting Spanish-speaking clients in immigration matters, and has helped multiple asylum seekers contest deportation. She has also assisted many asylees in obtaining legal permanent residence in the United States. Kendra also works with veterans seeking discharge upgrades, and secured a discharge status upgrade from “other than honorable” to honorable for a former U.S. Marine suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Kendra recently provided pro bono legal services to a Chicago-based non-profit in connection with the production of a documentary film chronicling the organization’s history. Kendra is a recipient of the Northern District of Illinois’s Award for Excellence in Pro Bono and Public Interest Service for her work on a Section 1983 case.