Prior to starting at Venable, Kelly developed her legal research and writing skills as a judicial extern with the Honorable M. Hannah Lauck on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. She also provided zealous advocacy through her participation in post-conviction work at the Institute for Actual Innocence, the University of Richmond School of Law’s wrongful conviction clinic. Before law school, Kelly spent a year as a paralegal in southwest Virginia, where she worked closely with small and local businesses to help them start and grow in their surrounding communities.