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Jenner & Block Partner Kenyanna M. Scott was recently recognized by Crain’s New York in its “Forty Under 40” list for 2010. The annual listing honors “a dynamic group of New Yorkers who have excelled in their respective fields.” The 40 individuals are chosen from more than 500 nominations that are submitted and selections are based on professional achievement, community involvement and participation in professional organizations.
Ms. Scott’s profile highlights her work as a former federal prosecutor in Chicago, where her “tenacity often meant following a case right out of the courtroom,” and notes that once, “after winning convictions for dozens of players in a local drug ring, she drove by the housing development where they’d been operating so she could see the results.”
Zaldwaynaka Scott, the former chief of the criminal division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, told Crain’s, “I’ve seen hundreds of people come and go, and Kenyanna stands out. She had this ability to always get it right.”
The article notes Ms. Scott’s white collar defense and investigations practice at Jenner & Block, representing clients facing grand jury investigations and helping guide companies working in foreign jurisdictions known for corruption. It also points out that she devotes substantial time to pro bono cases in family court, “trying to mitigate some of the patterns she saw as a prosecutor.”
In 2007, Ms. Scott was named to Law Bulletin Publishing Company’s list of “40 Illinois Attorneys Under Forty to Watch,” and recognized for her courtroom successes, her devotion to the community and promoting diversity in the legal profession.
Before relocating to New York, Ms. Scott was a leader in the Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater Chicago and the Chicago Bar Association Alliance for Women. She is a Board Member of Just the Beginning Foundation, an organization whose goal is to increase diversity in the legal profession and judiciary, and a volunteer and supporter of the Sylvia and Herbert Woods Scholarship Foundation, Harlem, New York. She has taught trial advocacy seminars and workshops for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy and the University of Notre Dame Law School.
Ms. Scott obtained her J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law, where she was senior articles editor of the Northwestern University Law Review. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Bates College.
Please click here to view a pdf of Ms. Scott’s “Forty Under 40” profile