By Kevin Eigelbach
NKyTribune reporter
Many people have asked Louis Kelly what his first priority will be when he takes office in January as the new commonwealth’s attorney for Boone and Gallatin counties.
He tells them that since he campaigned on a platform of restoring public trust in the office, he’ll do things he thinks will help do that. It’s not something that he can do overnight.
Louis Kelly, the commonwealth’s attorney-elect for Boone and Gallatin counties, in his office at the Covington law firm of Adams, Stepner, Woltermann & Dusing PLLC (photo by Kevin Eigelbach).
“I don’t know what more I can do but to take each case that comes before me and try to handle it professionally, and within the rules of ethics,” he said.
In May, the Union resident, who’s presently a partner with the Covington law firm Adams, Stepner, Woltermann & Dusing PLLC, defeated longtime incumbent Linda Tally Smith for the Republican Party nomination. That effectively gave him the job, as he has no opposition in the November general election.
Born in Louisville, Kelly moved to Springfield as a child. As a nod to that heritage, he keeps a drawing of Abraham Lincoln on one office wall.
As Kelly grew, he stuffed envelopes, went door-to-door and visited church fish fries during political campaigns for his father, Dan Kelly, a longtime state senator.
He continued his political apprenticeship after he graduated from the University of Kentucky in 2001 with a degree in marketing. He worked for the Republican Party on political campaigns, including Ernie Fletcher’s 2003 campaign for governor.
After getting his fill of politics for a while, he decided to become an attorney and moved to Northern Kentucky to attend Northern Kentucky University’s Salmon P. Chase College of Law. After he graduated in 2007, he went to work for Boone County Attorney Robert Neace and spent three years there.
Neace said he had Kelly try a traffic case his first week on the job. Kelly won the case. He said he found Kelly incredibly hard working, very personable and “incredibly ethical.”
Kelly enjoyed the work and hadn’t planned to leave until Jeff Mando, whose work he respected, asked him to join Adams, Stepner, Woltermann & Dusing. It was an offer that was too good to pass up, he said, and he joined the firm in February 2010.
Mando
“When I sat down and had breakfast with Louis, I knew immediately that he would be a key part of our team and someone I wanted to have at the firm,” said Mando, a partner with the firm and the leader of its civil litigation team.
Kelly has an “incredible sense for what’s right and wrong,” Mando said, and he’s done a “miraculous” job defending the firm’s clients. He’s very good at seeing the key issues in a case, marshalling the facts and presenting them clearly to a jury, Mando said.
“He’s going to be a great lawyer for the people of Boone County,” Mando said.
Kelly said he decided to run for commonwealth’s attorney when allegations about evidence being withheld from the defense in a high-profile murder case prosecuted by Tally Smith came to light.
That case ultimately resulted in the conviction against David Wayne Dooley being thrown out. A new trial is expected to begin later this year.
Kelly is excited about reuniting with the Boone County court officials he got to know when he worked for the county attorney. At the same time, he’ll miss the Covington law firm and the work there, he said.
What he likes about practicing law is that every case presents a new challenge. “I’ve always been the type of person that if I get the same thing, over and over, I get real bored with it.”
Considering Northern Kentucky’s ongoing heroin epidemic, as commonwealth’s attorney, he’s likely to prosecute a lot of cases involving drug use. His primary goal in those cases will be to keep the public safe, he said.
“I certainly believe that treatment and things of that nature have to be a component of any solution to the drug epidemic,” he said. But that won’t stop him from prosecuting traffickers to the fullest extent of the law, he added.
Another goal will be to resolve each case as soon as possible.
“I’m a big believer in justice delayed is justice denied,” he said.
When he’s not working, Kelly likes spending time with his 12-year-old son, Brian, and his 8-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. They sometimes talk to each other in sign language for the benefit of Kelly’s wife, Melissa, who was born deaf.
The two met at church – Kelly is a lifelong Mormon – and were married almost 15 years ago. Kelly keeps a cross-stich of The Beatles in his office that Melissa made him as a gift.
That’s a nod to classic rock music, another of his passions. On weekends, he plays drums with a blues band in Lawrenceburg, Indiana.
He’s only 40, but he’s already decided what he wants to do when he retires — play the drums in a jazz ensemble, in the evening, for patrons at a local café.
Contact the Northern Kentucky Tribune at news@nkytrib.com
