Linda Kelly

Linda Kelly is the chief legal officer, legal, general counsel, and corporate secretary at the NAM. In addition to handling NAM’s organizational legal compliance, Ms. Kelly also oversees the work of the NAM’s Manufacturers’ Center for Legal Action, directing the NAM’s litigation strategy in support of its policy objectives.

Ms. Kelly is a seasoned Washington policy lawyer with more than 20 years of experience working on a diverse array of legal and public policy issues at the state, federal and international levels. Immediately prior to joining the NAM, Ms. Kelly served as senior counsel and director of chief legal officer services for the Association of Corporate Counsel, a professional membership organization for in-house counsel. She spent three years in legal academia, first as the founding director of the State Attorneys General Education Program at Northwestern Law School and subsequently as director of education and outreach for the Law & Economics Center at George Mason University Law School.

Ms. Kelly was previously vice president for policy and research at the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, where she directed state-based civil justice reform efforts in some of the most challenging jurisdictions in the country, building coalitions and collaborating with internal and external constituents to drive results. She was also responsible for designing and managing a wide array of research projects related to the U.S. civil justice system, in addition to collaborating on litigation strategies to support civil justice reform efforts.

Formerly an associate with the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, LLP, (now Hogan Lovells) in Washington, D.C., Ms. Kelly focused her law practice on U.S. immigration, economic sanctions and export control laws as well as international trade policy issues. She represented clients before the U.S. departments of Treasury, Commerce, Labor, Homeland Security and State. Her early years in Washington included congressional affairs stints with the South Korean Embassy and the D.C. office of Ryder System, Inc.

Ms. Kelly holds an A.B. in Government from Dartmouth College and a J.D., cum laude, from the Georgetown University Law Center. She is a member of the D.C. and Virginia bars. Ms. Kelly resides in Alexandria, Virginia, with her husband and two children.