Attorney Hennessey is a magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University, where he double-majored in History and Philosophy. The History Department awarded him the magno cum honore in thesi distinction for his rigorous examination of Robert F. Kennedy’s reaction to the Civil Rights Movement. Prior to graduating from Tufts, Hennessey spent three semesters as a visiting student at the University of Wisconsin’s Center for South Asia, focusing on Mahayana Buddhism, the history of Nepal and Tibet, and the Tibetan language. These studies included residences in Patan, Kathmandu, Jawalakhel, and Chelsa, Nepal. Hennessey obtained his master’s degree at The Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland (the “Great Books” program) in 1993. Two years later, he earned his Juris Doctor degree, cum laude, from The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, in the fall of 1995.
Attorney Hennessey’s “real world” learning experiences complement his formal education. As a political organizer in two presidential campaigns, a legislative aide to a state senator, a special-detail speechwriter in the White House, and an international democratization activist who served as an election observer in Pakistan and Zambia, Hennessey is schooled in a broad range of advocacy skills. Hennessey does not shrink from tough assignments, including volunteering to drive through incumbent Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda’s military lines to deliver a handwritten note from observer delegation leader President Jimmy Carter which said, in essence, “we know you’re cheating.”