Christopher G. Kelly

Christopher G. Kelly is the firmwide Section Leader of Holland & Knight's 615-lawyer Litigation Section. Mr. Kelly defends airlines and manufacturers and their insurers in suits brought throughout the U.S., and he has significant experience in the defense of mass-tort, toxic-tort and complex commercial claims.

Mr. Kelly is representing Air France in multi-district litigation arising out of the accident over the mid-Atlantic. Among his other aviation cases, Mr. Kelly handled the defense of Air France in the U.S. litigation arising out of the Concorde crash and the defense of Air Transat in U.S. litigation arising out of the A330 incident in the Azores, and he was lead counsel in the successful lawsuit by Air France against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for the loss of a Concorde's Olympus engines due to bird strikes at Kennedy Airport. He has handled accidents due to fuel exhaustion, fuel starvation, passenger claims for emergency landings, airport construction contracts and state attorney general investigations into the conduct of airlines.  In addition, he was the lead counsel for JetBlue Airways in its nationwide privacy class-action litigations and has represented clients across the country as lead and trial counsel in multi-district litigation and class actions in state and federal courts involving product liability, environmental litigation, and general commercial litigation. Mr. Kelly has also represented multiple equipment lessors and guarantors in the successful resolution of secured claims involving aviation equipment. 

Prior to becoming a lawyer, Mr. Kelly was employed as Director of Development at Regis High School, New York City.