Mr. Kearney is a member of Davis Polk & Wardwell’s Corporate Department. He represents clients in securities underwritings, including venture capital and leveraged buyout investments, initial public offerings, and international debt and equity offerings. His practice also includes representation of issuers and agents in private placements, advising on the development of new financial instruments, and providing general corporate advice, including advice with respect to reporting and disclosure obligations under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

Among the more notable transactions in which he has participated are the initial public offerings for Apple Computer and Morgan Stanley, numerous debt and equity offerings for People Express, and Her Majesty’s Government’s privatization of 12 U.K. electricity distribution companies and two generation companies. He also represented Guinness Peat Aviation in its 1996 balance sheet restructuring (a securitization of aircraft and related leases that International Finance Review called the “most complex corporate bond transaction of all time”) and Morgan Stanley, as lead underwriter for the $3 billion initial public offering of Lucent Technologies. He has participated in the development and public offering of new financial instruments, including such preferred stock products as the Convertible Adjustable Preferred Stock issued by Sara Lee and auction preferred stocks issued by the U.K. companies English China Clays and Redland. He also helped develop the coal seam gas royalty trusts created by The Williams Companies and Burlington Resources.

Mr. Kearney joined Davis Polk in 1977 and became a partner in 1985. He practiced in the London office from 1989 to 1992 and from 1998 to 2007.

Mr. Kearney graduated, Phi Beta Kappa and with high honors, from the University of Virginia, in 1972 and in 1975 received an M.A. from the University of Virginia. He received his J.D., Order of the Coif, in 1977 from the University of Virginia School of Law. He is a member of the American Bar Association and the New York City Bar Association.