Kevin M. Fitzgerald
Office Managing Partner

Practice Areas

Experience

Kevin Fitzgerald is a member of the litigation department and is the managing partner in Nixon Peabody LLP’s Manchester, New Hampshire, office. He practices nationally, concentrating in the area of complicated business disputes, with particular expertise in federal and state receivership proceedings. He has successfully prosecuted and defended, as lead counsel, multimillion-dollar litigation involving claims in such areas as mergers and acquisitions, corporate fiduciary duty, directors and officers liability, securities enforcement, insurance coverage, and employment law claims involving corporate executives.

Selected Experience

• Secured multimillion-dollar recoveries for benefit of receivership and defrauded investors as lead counsel for federal court appointed receivership arising out of high-profile SEC enforcement litigation
• Secured defendants’ verdict in defense of board of directors sued for breach of fiduciary duty, self-dealing, and fraud in connection with public company merger transaction
• Secured defendants’ verdict in defense of multimillion-dollar breach of fiduciary duty claims by minority shareholders against directors and majority shareholders
• Obtained $1 million breach of contract award on behalf of former CEO of high-technology start up company
• Successfully argued landmark appeal on behalf of national managed care insurer, resulting in invalidation of court orders made in derogation of carrier’s audit and arbitration rights
• Obtained multimillion-dollar recoveries in separate trials on behalf of two former corporate chief executives wrongfully terminated “for cause” in attempts to escape payment of vested compensation and stock rights
• Earned multiple defense judgments on behalf of insurers in disputes involving hundreds of millions of dollars in disputed insurance coverage and related bad faith claims
• Acted as lead counsel in successful arbitration of $4+ million complex contract civil fraud and conspiracy claim and secured no-prosecution decision in related federal criminal investigation
• Earned defense judgment in defense of defamation and civil conspiracy claims against corporate defendant arising out of shareholder dispute
• Obtained defense judgment in federal court trial of ERISA claims against major regional financial institution
• Twice successfully defended appeals to the United States Supreme Court from successful orders in lower appellate courts

Admissions

Mr. Fitzgerald is admitted to practice in New Hampshire and before the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire, the First Circuit Court of Appeals, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He is also admitted in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York. Mr. Fitzgerald has appeared in matters in numerous other jurisdictions, including courts in New York, Massachusetts, California, Illinois, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Mexico, Connecticut, and Maine. He has also appeared in American Arbitration Association proceedings in New York City, Boston, and Washington, DC.

Education

Suffolk University Law School, J.D., with honors (Law Review)
University of New Hampshire, B.A., with honors
Harvard Business School, Executive Program

Affiliations

Mr. Fitzgerald has served on the board of directors of the American Diabetes Association—New England and New Hampshire affiliates (past chairman); he is president and chairman of the board of the Manchester Community Music School and serves as an advisor to several other charitable organizations. He is a past member of the board of governors of the New Hampshire Trial Lawyers Association and past president of the Manchester Bar Association.

Mr. Fitzgerald is recognized for exceptional standing in the legal community in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business 2009 for litigation work. Mr. Fitzgerald has been recognized in Chambers USA in every year of its publication. He has also been recognized as a “New England Super Lawyer” in Business Litigation based on a peer-review survey by Boston Magazine (2007, 2008, 2009). In 2008, Mr. Fitzgerald was recognized for both his leadership of Nixon Peabody’s “highly recommended” litigation team and as an individual “Litigation Star” by Benchmark Litigation, a guide to leading American trial lawyers, describing him as “brilliant” and “logical” in the courtroom.