The National Law Journal has honored Jennifer Selendy, a founding partner of Selendy Gay, with its prestigious Keith Givens Visionary Award. This award, given to only one of NLJ’s Elite Trial Lawyers each year, recognizes extraordinary creativity in bringing the legal industry together, developing new opportunities for business growth, and supporting the professional development of attorneys across the country.
The National Law Journal chose Jennifer based on her outstanding track record as a litigator in many areas of private law coupled with her extensive leadership and service in the public interest.
The NLJ singled out her pro bono work as a co-founder of 30 Birds Foundation, a nonprofit providing support to Afghan girls and their families fleeing the Taliban, and as a co-founder of the Speyer Legacy School, an independent K-8 school for gifted children that focuses on identifying and educating low income, high-achieving children in New York City. Jennifer has also led a number of major representations for the firm, including in precedent-setting cases for lender groups excluded from liability management transactions in Trimark, TPC, and Mitel. She is conflicts counsel to the UCC in Celsius bankruptcy and co-leads the firm’s representation of Fortis in a $1+ billion earn-out dispute with Johnson & Johnson regarding robotically-assisted surgical devices.
Focusing on the plight of girls at Marefat High School, an Afgan school for the historically persecuted Hazara minority, Jennifer helped assemble the team of lawyers, journalists, military experts, government officials and human rights advocates that became 30 Birds Foundation’s team; and utilized her extensive network to fundraise for the evacuation effort and to organize the legal support to establish the nonprofit and begin the evacuation of the girls. She then led an effort to assemble a global team of lawyers to assist with the girls’ visa application process, ultimately helping over 500 people resettle safely in Canada, adjust to life in their new country, and pursue education in North America.
In a recent litigation victory, Jennifer successfully represented an ad hoc group of term lenders in New York Supreme Court, alleging the defendants, TriMark, its equity sponsors, and several of its other lenders, violated the governing credit agreement by issuing new senior debt that effectively turned the plaintiffs’ first-lien debt into third-lien debt and issuing new “super senior” debt without inviting plaintiffs to participate. In January 2022, the parties settled the case, with TriMark allowing the former first-lien lenders to exchange their debt for new “super senior” debt and to pay all lenders’ attorneys’ fees. With this victory, Jennifer has been frequently sought after for her leadership in advising clients in disputes over liability management transactions.
Jennifer has served on the board of the National Center for Law & Economic Justice for twenty years, and is currently on the Advisory Board of the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University.
