Kevyn Orr African American lawyer Date of Birth: 11.05.1958 Country: USA

Biography of Kevin Orr

Kevin Dwayne Orr was born on May 11, 1958 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His father, Allen Eugene Orr, was a priest of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and defended the rights of the African American minority in South Florida in the 1960s and 1970s. His mother, Dorothy Jackson, was a teacher who eventually became an administrator for the superintendent of the Broward County School District.

Orr earned his bachelor's degree in 1979 and his Juris Doctor in 1983 from the University of Michigan. He began his legal career at the law firm "Sterns Weaver Miller Weissler Alhadeff & Sitterson" in Miami, where he became a partner in 1988. In 1991, Kevin joined the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and was later transferred to the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), where he served as assistant general counsel for complex litigation and bankruptcy issues. Starting in 1995, Orr became the Deputy Director of the United States Trustees Executive Office, which oversees the nation's bankruptcy system. In 2000, he became the head of the State Asset Management Program.

In 2001, Kevin joined the Washington, D.C. office of the international law firm "Jones Day" as a partner. He was selected to lead the firm's new Miami office before relinquishing his partnership and heading to Detroit. Orr represented the interests of the automotive company Chrysler during its technical bankruptcy and restructuring in 2009. According to court records, Orr was paid $700 per hour for his services during the Chrysler bankruptcy case. The "Detroit News" referred to Orr as the "leading lawyer who convinced the court to allow Chrysler to shutter a quarter of its U.S. dealerships."

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder appointed Orr as the Emergency Manager or Chief Financial Officer of Detroit on March 14, 2013. Prior to this, on January 24, 2013, Snyder signed a revised version of a controversial emergency management law, which had been rejected by voters in the November elections of the same year. The new law took effect on March 28, 2013. The law granted Orr exclusive control over any financial aspect of the situation in the event of an emergency, as well as the authority to recommend to the governor and state treasurer to file under Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code, which provides for the restructuring of municipal debt.

In 1990, the "Miami Herald" named Orr the "most eligible bachelor" in the county. In 2004, Kevin married Donna Neal, a surgeon from the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. They had been dating since 1994 and have two children.