Kennedys has opened an office in Dallas after hiring a 14-lawyer team from aviation trial boutique Cuningham Swaim, led by partners Ross Cunningham and Steven Sanfelippo.
The new office is the firm's third in Texas after Austin and Houston and comes amid a sustained US growth push that since 2017 has seen it go from one office to now 13, housing more than 100 partners and 300 lawyers. The firm cited strong US growth as a driver of its 9% revenue rise in FY26 to a record high of £457m.
Kennedys said its new Dallas office provided a base from which to serve clients across aviation, product liability and insurance sectors.
“Aviation is a highly specialised and increasingly global area of risk, and our clients value the ability to draw on sector knowledge across jurisdictions when complex matters arise," Eric Hiller, the firm's US managing partner, said.
"Bringing Ross, Steve and their team to Kennedys allows us to build on our existing capabilities and bring together complementary experience and resources for clients facing sophisticated aviation matters," he added.
The Cuningham Swaim team has represented airlines, insurers, manufacturers and others in US-based litigation at both state and federal level.
Cunningham and co-founder Don Swaim have handled more than 200 aviation trials nationwide, with a practice that spans catastrophic loss, complex liability disputes, complex commercial matters and appellate proceedings.
Cunningham commented: “Our practice has been built around being there when the stakes are at their highest. Aviation litigation can involve extraordinary factual, technical and legal complexity, and clients need an agile, creative team they can trust to navigate those challenges and deliver results.”
He added: “We have been fortunate to build longstanding relationships with clients who turn to us for some of their most significant matters. Lots of firms get calls, but only one firm gets the first call.”
The team adds to Kennedys’ established global aviation offering, boosting the existing 50-lawyer practice, and adds US trial experience to the firm’s broader insurance practice.
Kennedys also grew its New York disputes bench in June with the hire of a 12-lawyer trial team from national US firm Tyson & Mendes, though it has seen retrenchment in other areas, with DWF adding personal injury and casualty teams, as well as a marine insurance team, from its London and Leeds offices.
Other Kennedys aviation hires include the return of London aviation partner Rob Ireland from Clyde & Co, which follows a series of exits from that firm’s aviation team, alongside departures from Clyde’s standalone arbitration practice group to other law firms, including Steptoe and Keystone.
Clyde & Co, which has made no secret of its own US aspirations, has responded by making a series of senior aviation hires internationally, spanning key aviation hubs such as London, as well as an experienced hire in Dubai. More recently it also hired two senior former aviation legal counsel in the US and Hong Kong.
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