Colleen M. Kennedy was born on January 8, 1977, to Linda and Edward Kennedy. She attended Hudson Falls schools, beginning with Maple Street Elementary. In high school, she lettered in volleyball, basketball and softball, and was a member of the New York State Class B Volleyball Champions in 1991 and 1992. She was named The Post-Star’s Volleyball Player of the Year in 1994 and received the Sports Foundation MVP Scholar-Athlete Award in 1995. Colleen was also active in the music program, as an oboe player and Choralier.
Following high school, Colleen attended Duke University and pursued a major in Public Policy Studies. She graduated from Duke Summa cum laude in 1999, and then attended the Yale Law School, receiving a J.D. in 2002.
After law school, Colleen served as a law clerk to Judge Michael Hawkins of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and then spent the first years of her career in legal practice with a large international law firm in San Francisco, followed by work with a criminal defense firm in Portland, OR. Colleen did significant pro bono work while in private practice, including overturning the conviction and securing the release of a Texas death row inmate who had been wrongfully convicted.
Since 2012, Colleen has worked at the U.S. Department of Justice, serving as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California. She works in the Affirmative Civil Enforcement Unit, focusing on financial fraud prosecutions. Colleen was a member of a small team that obtained a $13 billion settlement with JPMorgan for its fraud in the mortgage securitizations that contributed to the financial crisis. The settlement was at the time the largest with a single entity in American history. In 2014, Colleen was named an Attorney of the Year by California Lawyer magazine and received the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service from then-Attorney General Eric Holder.
Colleen lives in Sacramento with her husband John Mounier and their one-year-old son Charlie.