Gandy was born in Bossier City in northwestern Louisiana, to Alfred Kenneth Gandy, a native of Bossier City, and Roma Rae Gandy, a native of Pennsylvania. Her father was an officer of the former Bossier Bank and Trust Company, an institution organized during the 1920s by her grandfather, W.A. Gandy. After Roma's death, A. K. Gandy married the former Shirley S. Lacobee of Shreveport. Kim Gandy had a younger sister Kellie Ann, who, like their mother, died of cancer. Kim Gandy graduated from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, the seat of Lincoln Parish, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics. Having taken a job with American Telephone and Telegraph, Gandy became outraged that the firm required her husband's permission for employee benefits. In 1973, she joined Louisiana NOW and devoted the next several years to the campaign that overturned the state's Head and Master law, which gave husbands unilateral control over all property jointly owned by a married couple. Inspired by her activism in NOW, she studied at Loyola University New Orleans School of Law where she was a member of the Loyola Law Review and the National Moot Court Team. She graduated from Loyola in 1978. Gandy went on to serve as a senior assistant district attorney in New Orleans and later opened a private trial practice, litigating cases seeking fair treatment for women. She served as president of Louisiana NOW from 1979 through 1981, national secretary of NOW from 1987 to 1991, and executive vice president of NOW from 1991 to 2001. She was elected national NOW president in 2001 and re-elected to a second term in 2005. She was term-limited in 2009. In 2008, Gandy defended presidential candidateHillary Clinton from a comment made by MSNBC host Chris Matthews, himself a Democrat, for remarks that Matthews made about then U.S. Senator Clinton having received "sympathy" support because her husband, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, "messed around." Gandy charged that Matthews "is a repeat offender when it comes to sexist attitudes toward women politicians.... I wasn't really looking for an apology. I was looking for a behavior change, and for him to treat female politicians the same way as male politicians." Gandy is married to Christopher "Kip" Lornell, an American ethnomusicologist and professor of music at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. They have two daughters.
