About Ken Grady
Ken Grady is professor at the MSU Law, where he teaches a course on Delivering Legal Services. Ken is the Lean Law Evangelist for Seyfarth Shaw LLP, and formerly was Chief Executive Officer of SeyfarthLean® Consulting, LLC, a Seyfarth Shaw subsidiary.
As a recognized thought leader, Ken is a frequent speaker in and outside the U.S. on legal industry issues and trends, including innovation, leadership, efficiency, and change management. Ken’s articles and posts have been featured in many online and print media publications, and he is the editor of the blog SeytLines.com. He has also earned a number of accolades during his career, including being named to the Fastcase 50, which honors the law’s “smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders” and was honored by the Financial Times for innovative leadership of in-house counsel/outside counsel relationships.
Ken helped pioneer techniques in the legal industry such as value-based fee arrangements, project management, and process improvement, netting impressive results including reducing legal department expenses by as much as 50% in high-growth companies. Ken has more than twenty years of experience with Lean thinking and Lean Six Sigma. As part of the award-winning team at office furniture manufacturer HNI Corporation, Ken was general manager of the company’s second largest facility leading its 700-person team in more than 1,500 hours of Lean events. In one year, the facility’s commitment to Lean drove more than 7% in productivity improvement at the same time production grew by more than 40%, the facility achieved a near-perfect safety record, and was recognized for its quality and ROIC performances. Ken received Lean training in Japan through famed consulting firm Shingijutsu Co., Ltd., studying under Yoshiki Iwata and Senji Niwa, two members of the original Toyota Autonomous Study Group founded by Taiichi Ohno, one of the creators of the Toyota Production System.
Before retiring from in-house positions, Ken’s career included general counsel roles at three Fortune 1000 corporations and executive leadership positions in Fortune 500 and 1000 corporations. Before moving in-house, Ken was a partner at a major multinational law firm. Ken was an active member of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) for 14 years. He served as a member of the ACC’s Board of Directors, its Value Challenge Steering Committee and its Advocacy Committee.
Education:
J.D., Northwestern University School of Law (1984)
M.M., Finance, Northwestern University J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management (1984) F.C. Austin Scholar
B.A., Drake University (1978) summa cum laude