David Kinsella

Senior Associate General Counsel

David L. Kinsella is a Senior Associate General Counsel in the Office of Legal Counsel at the University of Kentucky.  He has more than three decades of legal experience in private practice, corporate and research settings and the university environment.

At UK, Mr. Kinsella advises the University in all areas related to research, including grants and contracts, intellectual property (patents, copyrights, and trademarks), research compliance, research misconduct, a wide variety of agreements associated with research, and complex business agreements particularly those with research or intellectual property ties.

Mr. Kinsella is also an ex-officio member on a variety of research-related committees at UK, including: Intellectual Property Committee; Research and Institutional Conflict of Interest Committees; Research Advisory Committee; and the IRBs and IACUC.

Immediately prior to joining UK, Mr. Kinsella was Chief Legal Officer for Mapi Group (now known as ICON), a contract research organization, where he managed a legal staff located in three countries and handled complex business agreements, clinical research legal issues, mergers and acquisitions, policy and training development, privacy matters, intellectual property issues, and supervised the company’s corporate matters in 17 countries, with operations in more than 70. Prior to that, he worked in the UK Office of Continuing Legal Education as Assistant Director & Publications Director, as an associate at each of Frost Brown Todd LLC and Thomas, Stidham & Acree, PLC, and as General Counsel for Van-American Insurance Company—all in Lexington. His private practice included a variety of commercial and corporate transactions, with substantial mineral law, transactional law, private company mergers and acquisitions, commercial lending and real estate, state and federal business litigation, and creditors’ rights practice.

Mr. Kinsella was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. He received his Bachelor’s in Business Administration (emphasis in Finance; minor in Economics) with distinction from the Gatton College of Business and Economics at UK. He subsequently graduated from the University of Dayton School of Law where he served as Senior Production Editor of the Law Review. His publications include legal articles on corporations, banking and insurance.

B.S., University of Kentucky (With Distinction)

J.D., University of Dayton School of Law (Law Review)