Michael Kirk

Michael W. Kirk has extensive civil litigation experience representing a wide range of clients on a variety of constitutional, statutory, contractual, commercial and tort matters.

Mr. Kirk has appeared regularly in cases brought against the federal government. Most recently, for example, he successfully represented Ford Motor Company in a lawsuit against the Federal government seeking to recover environmental clean-up expenses arising from a World War II contract to build B-24 Bombers. While the Court of Federal Claims dismissed Ford’s suit, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed, and remanded with instructions that judgment be entered in favor of Ford. He is currently representing Shell Oil Company, Union Oil Company of California, Atlantic Richfield Company, and Chevron-Texaco in a similar lawsuit against the Federal Government arising from World War II contracts. And Mr. Kirk recently served as lead trial counsel for American Capital Corporation in a lawsuit against the United States for breach of contract arising from an agreement entered by the Government in an effort to address the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. Following trial, the Court of Federal Claims awarded plaintiffs $109 million in January 2005.

Mr. Kirk has also represented state and local governments in numerous complex constitutional and statutory cases involving such varied issues as Medicaid, school desegregation, and prison reform. Most recently, he has represented the States of Tennessee and Hawaii in several cases involving their Medicaid programs. He is currently representing the Marion County, Florida School District in its school desegregation case, and he has successfully represented public school districts in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Rockford, Illinois, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in their efforts to obtain unitary status and end long-running school desegregation cases. In the civil rights arena, Mr. Kirk served as lead trial counsel on behalf of a plaintiff in securing the largest verdict ever returned against a suburban Maryland police department.

Mr. Kirk has an extensive appellate practice, and he has argued cases before the United States Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Federal, Third, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits.

Mr. Kirk served as law clerk to Judge James L. Ryan of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He received his J.D. degree, cum laude, in 1988 from Northwestern University. He served as Executive Editor of The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, and is a member of the Order of the Coif. He earned an A.B. degree, cum laude, from Georgetown University in 1985.

Mr. Kirk is a member of the Bars of the State of New York, the District of Columbia, the United States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, District of Columbia and Federal Circuits, the United States District Courts for the Districts of Arizona, Maryland and the District of Columbia, and the United States Court of Federal Claims.