KIM MICHELE KEENAN

KIM KEENAN is a graduate of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and the University of Virginia School of Law, where she has served on the University of Virginia Law Alumni Council. After law school, she served as the law clerk to the Honorable John Garrett Penn in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She is currently a Senior Trial Attorney at the Law Firm of Jack H. Olender & Associates in Washington, D.C. where she has settled or tried cases in the seven figure range for more than fifteen years. In 2006, Ms. Keenan was recognized as a Distinguished Black Woman by Black Women in Sisterhood for Action, Inc. (BISA) and was honored by Girls Inc for serving as a mentor to women. In August 2005, she completed her term as the 62nd President of the National Bar Association (NBA), the oldest and largest bar association of lawyers of color. She is the first woman from the District of Columbia to be elected to this post and only the 8th woman in the organization’s 81 year history to serve as the chief executive officer. In 2005, she was the recipient of the Maryland Bar Foundation’s Professional Legal Excellence Award for the Advancement of Public Understanding of the Law. She currently serves as a director of the National Bar Association, the District of Columbia Bar, the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the National Assembly of the American Lung Association, the Equal Rights Center, and the Council for Legal Education Opportunity (CLEO). In addition, she has provided guest commentary on numerous radio and television programs on litigation matters.