Connolly Gallagher Welcomes New Partner Shaun Michael Kelly
Connolly Gallagher is pleased to announce that Shaun Michael Kelly has re-joined the firm as a partner in the Delaware Business, Commercial, and Corporate Litigation group. He joins us from the Delaware Department of Justice where he most recently served as the Director of Consumer Protection and previously worked as a Deputy Attorney General in the Fraud and Consumer Protection Division’s Consumer Protection Unit (“CPU”). Shaun began his career as an associate at a prestigious Delaware law firm, and he worked previously as an attorney in Connolly Gallagher’s Delaware Business, Commercial, and Corporate Litigation group. Both at Connolly Gallagher and elsewhere, Shaun has advised large and mid-size business clients in a variety corporate and commercial litigation matters. Shaun has litigated a variety of disputes in Delaware’s Court of Chancery, including disputes related to books and records, business divorce, reformation, breach of fiduciary duty, and corporate control. Shaun has also litigated a number of disputes in the Delaware Superior Court’s Complex Commercial Litigation Division (“CCLD”), including complex contractual disputes.
Drawing on his experience as the Director of Consumer Protection for the Delaware Department of Justice, Shaun also assists Connolly Gallagher’s Government Law group with a variety of matters. CPU is responsible for enforcing approximately 30 consumer protection-related statutes—including Delaware’s Consumer Fraud Act, Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and data privacy statutes—and protecting the general public from consumer frauds and scams. As the CPU Director during the COVID-19 pandemic, Shaun managed CPU’s response to pandemic-related consumer frauds, which included overseeing complex price gouging investigations and enforcement, investigations of COVID-related consumer scams, and coordination with state and federal agencies regarding ongoing trends and pandemic-related policy.
“We are pleased to welcome Shaun back to the firm,” said Arthur G. (“Chip”) Connolly, III, Managing Partner of the Firm. “Shaun is an integral part of Connolly Gallagher’s Delaware Business, Commercial, and Corporate Litigation team not only because of his impressive litigation skills but because he approaches clients and team members with a caring and collaborative approach.”
Shaun has been recognized in Delaware Today magazine as one of the state’s Top Lawyers. After law school, he served a judicial clerkship with Justice Randy J. Holland of the Delaware Supreme Court. During law school, he served as a summer intern to Justice Holland and to Vice Chancellor Joseph R. Slights III, then a Superior Court judge.
Shaun earned his J.D. cum laude from University of Notre Dame Law School, where he served as an Assistant Articles Editor and the International Liaison for the Notre Dame Journal of International and Comparative Law and B.A. in Political Science from Swarthmore College. Shaun is a member of the Richard S. Rodney American Inn of Court and serves as the Secretary for the Board of Bar Examiners of the Supreme Court of Delaware.