Kenneth Lench

Senior SEC official Kenneth Lench will also join Kirkland as a partner in the global Government, Regulatory and Internal Investigations practice. Mr. Lench, who will leave the agency at the end of July, has headed the Structured and New Products Unit within the SEC Enforcement Division since January 2010 and will be based in the Firm’s Washington, D.C., office. Mr. Lench will join the Firm after a 23-year career at the SEC, where he most recently was Chief of the Structured and New Products Unit created by Mr. Khuzami in 2010 as a specialty group of more than 45 professionals nationwide focusing on abuses in markets for complex securities, including asset-backed securities and derivatives. In that role, he was responsible for building and managing the unit and supervised wide-reaching investigations into markets for collateralized debt obligations and residential mortgage-backed securities, resulting in $1.7 billion in recovered funds for investors in those products. He previously held various senior positions in the SEC’s Enforcement Division including assistant director, assistant chief counsel, branch chief and senior counsel, during which time he supervised and conducted investigations into violations of federal securities laws and achieved some of the largest settlements in SEC history in connection with auction rate securities issuance, among other matters. Mr. Lench is also the recipient of multiple SEC-wide honorary awards. “This will be a chance to work with a great team of attorneys, leverage the diverse practices at Kirkland and help the Firm's clients navigate the complex and challenging issues facing them,” added Mr. Lench. Mr. Lench holds a J.D. from the Boston University School of Law and a B.A. from Brandeis University. He was an adjunct professor of securities regulation at the George Washington University Law School from 2005 to 2007.