Randall H. Kennon – 50th Reunion Essay

Randall H. Kennon

521 W Rustic Rd

Santa Monica, CA 90402

Randallkennon@yahoo.com

310-720-5685/cell

Spouse(s): Kathryn A Smith (1980)

Education: Yale College 1969; UCLA School Of Law 1973

Career: 40+ years as a civil/commercial litigator in Southern California; I got the business deals when the parties were angry at each other; goal was to find most effective and efficient resolution and move forward

College: Davenport

Four years, wonderful hours in class (especially 20th Century English Novel and Histories of Russia and of India Before Colonialism), studying in hidden rooms in Sterling Library, meeting and making new friends all led to graduation. Today, I smile at some of the changes from 1965/69. Introductory Geology taught us the geosyncline theory of mountain and continent formation. Today we know it is plate tectonics. In Poli-Sci/International Relations, I focused on European integration and England’s efforts to join the European Economic Union. Today it is Brexit and a rise in European nationalism. We suffered the summers of 1965 and 1967, the political killings and events of 1968, and the Vietnam War. All history now.

After graduation, I returned to Los Angeles for the summer. In September, I took a redeye back to New York City without a job prospect and not knowing where I would next eat or sleep. My plan was to work and live in Manhattan. I ended up living in Brooklyn, before it was cool, and working in Newark. It was a great year with money in my pockets for the first time and New York City as my playground.

I returned to Los Angeles and law school after my year in New York City, and started practicing law in December 1973. My first job consisted of answering interrogatories and reviewing endless boxes of documents. Switching jobs, I moved to depositions and eventually civil trials. My cases became more interesting and factually and legally complex to resolve. I enjoyed commercial litigation. I was lucky in that opposing counsel were honest and had integrity. This made it possible to focus on what was important and not resort to table pounding.

I married my wife in 1980. She is an architectural historian teaching 20th-century modern architecture and writing books about Frank Lloyd Wright and Rudolph Schindler. While I was the economically successful one in our partnership, because of her classes and books, she is the one who will make a more lasting impact.

In 1987, I joined Bank of America’s Legal Department as a senior litigator/trial lawyer and my practice was as a true lawyer. In 1998 and as a result of corporate mergers, I went from “driving the bus” to supervising lawyers who “drove the bus” and after promotions to supervising lawyers who supervised lawyers who “drove the bus.” In 2004 and again as a result of corporate mergers, my position was shipped to the East Coast. I left the in-house practice of law to return to the role of outside counsel, and settled onto a glide path away from the active practice of law.

I miss the factual and legal problems and human interactions of the practice of law. I do not miss the corporate world. Now, I volunteer as a mediator, work on developing programs to remedy 20-something’s financial illiteracy and wonder what I am going to do “when I grow up big.”