Experiencia en la que puedes confiar en cada paso.

Edward Kelly graduated from the George Washington University law school in Washington, D.C., and has been a licensed disability attorney since 1981. First he was a staff attorney at a Social Security hearing office in California, where he wrote disability decisions for administrative law judges. After that, he was a Social Security disability attorney representing Social Security / SSI claimants. Later, Mr. Kelly was a workers' compensation defense attorney. After completing medical school, he became a licensed physician in 2000. Dr. Kelly completed medical residency training at the University of North Dakota and specialty training at the University of Washington and is board certified in general psychiatry and forensic psychiatry. He has regularly completed medical history & physical exams and at times has been required to take over the medical management of hospitalized patients.

Attorney-Doctor Kelly has been doing forensic disability evaluations on a part-time basis since he became a licensed physician and has completed a very broad range of different types of disability evaluations that have involved both medical and psychiatric issues. Dr. Kelly continues to have a full-time inpatient position at a hospital in Utah, and his part-time legal practice as well as his part-time disability evaluation practice are separate practices. It is important to note that Dr. Kelly does not do Social Security disability evaluations, but his medical, psychiatric, and disability evaluation experience and knowledge are very valuable in providing the best possible representation of Social Security / SSI disability claimants. It should be noted that Dr. Kelly's legal practice is limited to Social Security / SSI claims representation, as his legal licensure remains in California, but federal law and regulations allow attorneys who are licensed in any state to represent claimants in all other states. Dr. Kelly only represents Social Security / SSI disability claims, not other types of claims such as workers' compensation, other types of disability, personal injury, malpractice, etc.

Dr. Kelly undertakes a very active role in the Social Security/SSI claims he represents. This includes:

1. Obtaining medical records (sometimes Social Security is unable to obtain all records or may not have the latest records).
2. Directly requesting medical and mental health providers complete other tests or evaluations that would be helpful (and being a doctor is quite useful in knowing what to ask for and in having the claimant's providers cooperate).
3. Completing a comprehensive medical-legal review of records to understand the claimant's disability and then be able to explain it to the judge. Dr. Kelly's experience and knowledge from being a Social Security hearing office staff attorney, disability attorney, practicing medical doctor, and medical-legal evaluation examiner provide the basis for being able to knowledgeably do both the medical and legal parts of this.
4. Often Dr. Kelly is able to obtain the claimant's medical and/or mental health providers' willingness to testify at the hearing or submit declarations about the claimant. This is important because Social Security disability law gives the highest importance to the actual providers.
5. Dr. Kelly provides the hearing judge with a "pre-hearing brief," which concisely lays out the reason the claimant meets criteria for SSDI/SSI.
6. Dr. Kelly will directly question the claimant at the hearing, paying attention to the information critical for the judge to make a favorable decision. Too often attorneys / representatives will just sit back and let the judge do the questioning because they are just not prepared adequately.
7. Dr. Kelly will make legal "arguments" before the judge at the end of the hearing.
8. If needed, Dr. Kelly submits an additional brief and/or medical records after the hearing to address any issues brought up by the judge during the hearing that were not addressed in the earlier pre-hearing brief or medical record.
9. In some cases, if the ALJ decision is not favorable, Dr. Kelly will continue to assist the claimant with an appeal to the national Social Security Appeals Council near Washington, D.C.