Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Ken is a senior member of Kirkland’s dynamic Asset Finance & Securitization Practice Group, which has ranked as either the #1 or #2 Issuer’s Counsel for Asset-Backed Securities in the Thomson Reuters annual survey since 2010. According to Chambers Global 2017, Ken is valued by his clients for his ability to “distil information in a very compelling and effective way.” Since 1990, he has handled securitizations and principal finance matters involving a variety of asset classes on behalf of originators, underwriters, platform agents, principal finance groups and conduit sponsors.

Ken has been extremely active in ABS reform matters. He is currently participating in a task force organized by the American Bar Association Subcommittee on Securitization and Structured Finance (SSF) that is commenting on the proposed National Mortgage Note Repository Act; he led the drafting of three different comment letters for a group of more than 15 vehicle ABS sponsors on the SEC’s proposals for Reg AB II, loan level disclosure and shelf eligibility; he chaired a drafting committee of the SSF that submitted two comment letters to the SEC on the Dodd-Frank Act requirements for risk retention and a comment letter to the SEC on the subsequent risk retention reproposal; and he drafted comment letters for the American Financial Services Association on Dodd-Frank Sections 943 (repurchase demands) and 945 (issuer asset reviews).

Ken has also taken leading roles on a number of other comment letters and industry guides, including those by the American Securitization Forum on waterfall computer programs, auto sector disclosure, Rule 3a-7 reform and risk retention, and by the SSF on the FDIC’s securitization safe harbor regulation and the SEC’s reproposal on shelf eligibility.

Boston University School of Law, J.D., magna cum laude, 1983; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, M.B.A., 1983; Yale University, B.A., 1977.