While it is significant that William Kennard, general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, is one of only a handful of African Americans to make it into government’s upper echelon, perhaps just as significant is the fact that he works for Reed Hundt.
Hundt, though controversial as chairman of the FCC, is widely respected as a lawyer’s lawyer with one of the finest minds in the legal profession.
That should say something about his choice of Kennard for the job. Kennard, 37, has the good fortune of being both well regarded personally and professionally, and is arguably Hundt’s most popular recruit.
“He is one of the best liked FCC practitioners that ever walked down the street,” said William Crispin, a former partner of Kennard’s at the Washington, D.C., law offices of Verner Liipfert Bernard McPherson and Hand.
In a town of high-powered lawyers with egos as big as the Potomac River is wide, Kennard is the exception.
Kennard grew up in Los Angeles, and after earning a Phi Beta Kappa undergraduate degree at Stanford University in 1978, headed east to Hundt’s alma mater, Yale, to attend law school. The two men met for the first time last fall when Hundt was up for Senate confirmation.
“I like talking about the rules rather than about myself,” said Kennard with a laugh. But after some prodding, he did.
“One of the reasons I left private practice to do this is because I wanted to make a contribution to the minority community,” said Kennard.
“I’ve always felt that when you’re a minority professional and you achieve some level of success, you haven’t gotten there alone,” he explained. “You’ve gotten there because a lot of people went before you and were pioneers, and fought to get you here. And I have no illusions about that. I really believe that I’m here because of the struggles that came before me.”
But for all he has going for him, Kennard has not escaped controversy. Earlier this year, Kennard took the unorthodox step of pre-empting a federal appeals court from possibly overturning an FCC decision to award pioneer’s preferences for personal communications services licenses without requiring compensation from several companies.
The FCC subsequently reversed itself and made American Personal Communications, Cox Enterprises Inc. and Omnipoint Corp. pay for broadband PCS licenses granted under the wayward pioneer’s preference program.
Mobile Telecommunication Technologies Corp., another pioneer preference selectee, was forced to pay for a nationwide narrowband PCS license.
All four companies are still fuming.
Kennard disagrees with the notion that the FCC caved into political pressure, pointing out that agency lawyers brought up the payment issue months before House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., and others began making loud noises about giving away PCS licenses.
In addition, the FCC was criticized for initially being too conservative in carrying out Congress’ mandate to craft auction rules that open opportunities for women, minorities, small businesses and rural telephone companies in next-generation wireless telecommunications.
“Sure, I would have loved to have seen a minority applicant win in the nationwide (narrowband PCS) auction,” conceded Kennard, “but those were only 10 licenses. We have many more to go.” Since then, federal regulators have taken steps to improve the chances of so-called “designated entities” in narrowband PCS regional auctions later this month.
While it is too early to judge Kennard’s success or failure in court, communications attorneys praise the clarity and legal analysis in decisions issued by the Hundt commission, even when they don’t agree with what’s being said.
