Kara F. Kennedy

• Defended the world’s largest floor covering manufacturer in multidistrict litigation related to alleged price-fixing of polyurethane foam products.
• Member of the national counsel team in a large-scale automotive products liability and consumer class action MDL involving over 200 nationwide class actions.
• Counsel for a major national bank in a class action MDL and related state court proceedings alleging antitrust violations in the payment card industry.
• Counsel for a seller of personal computers in multiple consumer fraud class actions that, after class certification briefing, settled on very favorable terms.
• Counsel for a Japanese electronics company in New York federal court, where the plaintiff sought to recover more than $30 million incurred in connection with a product recall issued by a U.S. automobile manufacturer; the case settled on very favorable terms.
• Counsel to automotive industry clients in supplier indemnity disputes stemming from product recalls.
• Defended a leading manufacturer of vehicle restraint systems in multiple wrongful death product liability cases involving alleged defects related to air bags and seatbelts.

Kara Kennedy is counsel on Alston & Bird’s Litigation & Trial Practice Team. Kara represents clients in state and federal courts across the country and has experience with a wide range of litigation matters, including complex commercial litigation, consumer class actions, antitrust, products liability, internal investigations and insurance coverage disputes. She focuses her practice on consumer fraud class actions, with a particular emphasis on strategies for organizing and managing complex multidistrict litigation and structuring class settlements that will withstand judicial scrutiny. Kara also has significant experience handling contract and tort cases involving automotive industry clients and representing Japanese companies and their U.S. subsidiaries.

Kara received her J.D. from the University of Virginia, where she served on the editorial board of the Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law and was a quarterfinalist in the National First Amendment Moot Court Competition. Before graduating, she interned with the Honorable C. Christopher Hagy of the Northern District of Georgia. Kara received her B.A. from Wesleyan University, where she majored in psychology. While in college, she interned with the Honorable James W. Oxendine of the Superior Court of Gwinnett County, Georgia.

Bar Admissions

• Georgia

Education

• University of Virginia (J.D., 2006)
• Wesleyan University (B.A., 2001)