O'Malley, Kevin Francis, 1947-

Kevin Francis O'Malley (born May 12, 1947) is an American lawyer and diplomat who was the United States Ambassador to Ireland from 2014 to 2017.

O'Malley is a second generation Irish American, having dual citizenship of the United States and Ireland until returning his Irish citizenship in order to become ambassador. O’Malley has strong Irish roots; all four of his grandparents were born in Westport, County Mayo, Ireland. O’Malley was born in St. Louis and grew up there, but attended high school at St. Vincent’s Seminary in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, with the intent of entering the priesthood. Instead, he returned home and attended Saint Louis University, earning a B.A. in 1970, taking a break in 1968 to serve as a community ambassador in Prague, Czechslovakia. O’Malley earned a J.D. from the Saint Louis University’s law school in 1973. He also served for a time as an officer in the Army Reserve.

O'Malley was a Special Attorney of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, California and Phoenix, Arizona from 1974 to 1979 and was an Assistant United States Attorney in St. Louis, Missouri from 1979 to 1983. During his tenure as a federal prosecutor, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the United States Attorney General.

O'Malley served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Saint Louis University School of Law from 1979 to 1985, where he previously studied, and as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Washington University School of Law in 2013 and 2014. He was a legal instructor for the American Bar Association Central and East European Law Initiative (ABA CEELI) in Moscow, Russia in 1996 and Warsaw, Poland in 1999. In 1968, he had served as a Community Ambassador in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

In 2009, Governor of Missouri Jay Nixon appointed O'Malley to the Missouri Board of Healing Arts, the state's regulatory and disciplinary body for physicians, becoming its only non-physician member, and the physicians subsequently elected him as Board President. The appointment was criticized in some quarters because of the belief that O’Malley’s status as a malpractice defense attorney would cause him to defend physicians whose fitness to hold a license was questioned.

O'Malley is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers (ACTL). He authored the nine-volume Federal Jury Practice and Instructions, a treatise on jury instructions that is used in federal jury trials throughout the United States. He has been consistently chosen by the editors of The Best Lawyers in America for his work in medical negligence defence and white collar criminal defenses. O'Malley was a trial lawyer in the Litigation Department at Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale, P.C. in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was a partner, until resigning in order to become a US Ambassador. In 2013, he received the Award of Honor of The Lawyers Association of St. Louis.

On June 5, 2014, O'Malley was nominated by President Obama for the position of US Ambassador of Ireland. Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, immediately threw her support behind O'Malley, as did Senator Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said that O'Malley would bring "a strong knowledge of the role of the religious and cultural underpinnings, and the very important foreign policy and national security undergirdings" of the relationship between the United States and Ireland. The appointment of O'Malley was approved by the Irish Government. On July 15, 2014, O'Malley underwent his first confirmation hearing before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He was unanimously approved by the committee.

On September 18, 2014, the US Senate voted on O'Malley's appointment and he was confirmed in a simple vote. O'Malley was then officially appointed by President Obama, and sworn in by Vice President Biden on September 30, 2014. He presented his credentials to Irish President Michael D. Higgins on October 8, 2014, taking up residency nearby in the Deerfield Residence in the Phoenix Park.

On November 8, 2016, the day of the US presidential election, he made a speech at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin where he said "regardless of who our next president is in January, America's relationship with Ireland will remain strong because of the exceptional ties that already exist between our two countries." O'Malley's ambassadorship ended with the conclusion of the Obama administration in January 2017. He then rejoined Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale.