Our Firm
Kennedy & Baris, LLP, with offices in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area and San Antonio, Texas, provides high quality legal services to banks and other financial institutions, and their investors, directors and officers.
We also represent companies in need of venture capital.
In 1987, Patrick Kennedy and David Baris left large national law firms to form Kennedy & Baris, believing that efficient and effective legal services to community banks could be accomplished better through a highly focused, boutique law firm that highly valued community banks as clients. From the beginning, the firm was able to concentrate its expertise on issues that community banks commonly face, and through careful hiring practices, it was able to attract highly qualified experienced lawyers who had the expertise and skills to represent community banks. With experienced lawyers, the firm has been able to avoid duplicative work that often plagues large diversified law firms, where the use of three or four attorneys to work on the same matter is commonplace.
Many of the issues that arise in our practice have been addressed previously, thus allowing us to avoid the costly and time-consuming legal research and first-time drafting of legal documents that add substantially to the invoices of law firms that do not have our focus.
By concentrating on the legal needs of community banks and providing high quality work at a fair cost, Kennedy & Baris has been able to assist more than 300 banks over the past fifteen years. The firm has represented banks on:
- Over seventy bank mergers and purchase and assumption transactions since 1993, placing the firm near the top of law firms in the United States in terms of number of bank mergers
- Over twenty de novo bank formations
- Dozens of bank capital offerings, including numerous trust preferred securities offerings
- More than 200 S Corp elections
- Numerous engagements involving regulatory applications, examination, operational, and enforcement issues
We have been successful because our clients have been successful. Some of them have been extraordinarily successful. We strive to facilitate the success of our clients by providing practical, sound advice based on our deep understanding of the businesses of our clients and our commitment to efficient and effective problem-solving. We also identify business opportunities for our clients that can lead to profitable expansion of their businesses.
By limiting our practice to industries in which we have a substantial understanding of their business and legal aspects, we have the focus and expertise necessary to help contribute to the success of our clients.