Nelly Smith is a litigation associate in the Houston office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Nelly’s practice includes complex commercial and mass tort litigation and government and internal investigations.
Nelly has substantial experience in multidistrict tort litigation, representing a chemical company in Texas state court multidistrict litigation arising from two explosions and fires at a chemical plant. In that matter she has drafted plaintiff deposition outlines and accompanying deposition e-binders, conducted witness-preparation document reviews in advance of depositions, reviewed deposition transcripts for errata, prepared written discovery requests to designated bellwether plaintiffs, drafted amended responses and objections to plaintiffs’ requests for production and led extensive plaintiff-specific factual, property-ownership and damages analyses.
Nelly also has experience in government-facing investigations. She has served as counsel on an SEC securities and accounting fraud investigation involving a mortgage real estate investment trust and its external manager, focusing on fact development, document review and privilege analysis in response to an SEC subpoena. Her work there included second-level quality control review of production sets, privilege log review and evaluation of proposed redactions and escalation of key documents and personally identifiable information to the client-facing team. She has also conducted document review in connection with a DOJ inquiry, including reporting substantive review findings to the senior team.
Nelly is also committed to pro bono service, with a particular focus on advocacy for children. She has represented a parent alongside a disability rights organization, in a special education complaint and due process proceeding against a Texas school district over the denial of a free appropriate public education to a nonverbal child with autism, and has represented an incarcerated client in a Section 1983 deliberate indifference suit in federal court.
In addition to her litigation and investigations practice, Nelly has represented debtors in Chapter 11 litigation. She has handled discovery in connection with an official committee of unsecured creditors’ investigation and plan confirmation, drafted the debtors’ disclosure of fact and expert witnesses for the confirmation hearing, and reported to the case team on court proceedings.
