Akin Gump’s Suedeen Kelly, Thomas McCarthy Among NLJ’s Regulatory Trailblazers

(Washington, D.C.) – The National Law Journal has named Akin Gump energy regulation, markets and enforcement practice head Suedeen Kelly and international trade practice co-head Thomas McCarthy among the “innovative thinkers and leading practitioners” comprising its list of 2015 Regulatory & Compliance Trailblazers.

NLJ notes that, through this selection, it “recognizes the people who have made a difference navigating the ever-changing mandates of regulatory and compliance…Thanks to these talented legal professionals, corporations and stakeholders are raising the bar and improving outcomes.”

Among the trailblazing accomplishments noted for Ms. Kelly is the fact that, while she was chair of the New Mexico Public Service Commission, that state’s legislature passed a law requiring the restructuring of the New Mexico’s intrastate gas pipelines, “a year before FERC [Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] did it for interstate pipelines,” she noted. Her forward thinking while in private practice and at FERC are also spotlighted in her profile.

In the offing, Ms. Kelly sees the increased ability to recover previously unrecoverable oil and gas as a transformative factor on a global scale: “It creates literally new marketplaces and has positive implications for the U.S. economy, for enhancing foreign relations and relationships between the United States and other countries, while providing resources for developing countries.”

In his profile, Mr. McCarthy notes that he and his team focus on “really helping our clients in various industries interface with the U.S. government to solve existential questions involving their business and their ability to continue to grow, thrive and prosper throughout the world based on U.S. regulations and commitments under international trade laws.” NLJ spotlights his team’s successful efforts in a compressed time frame to gain CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) approval for a client’s critical divestiture of significant aerospace and defense assets.

Looking forward, he envisions growth, as the practice moves from a U.S. to a global concentration, noting, “Understanding multijurisdictional compliance and investigations will be the key to companies’ success.” He also identifies innovation as critical to law firms’ successful service to their clients, given the challenge of having practitioners in every jurisdiction worldwide.

Founded in 1945, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a leading international law firm with more than 900 lawyers in offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

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