KMA Law Office Expands Services With New Attorney

Located in the heart of Severna Park, KMA Law Office celebrated its 14th anniversary and welcomed a new attorney this past summer. Opened by Karen Authement in August of 2010, KMA Law Office offers clients “big firm services with small firm attention.” Practice areas include estate planning, probate and estate administration, personal injury and workers’ compensation.

“Bringing on another attorney in the personal injury department is about expanding our services and being able to help more clients in need,” Authement said of her decision to add attorney Kelly Arnold to her team. In addition to personal injury, Arnold specializes in auto accidents and workers’ compensation.

Authement shared that she was eager for Arnold to work with her not only because of her experience, but also because of their similar paths, having both worked as paralegals in the personal injury field for many years.

“Her background and experience just bring an incredible wealth of knowledge and a proper approach on how to evaluate these claims when they come, and how to help clients through the difficulties that they’re experiencing,” Authement said of Arnold. “So, it’s just been tremendous.”

Arnold joined KMA Law Office in June 2024. Together, she and Authement offer clients over 55 years of combined experience in the legal industry.

Arnold discovered her passion for helping people through some of life’s most challenging times when she got her start in the legal industry working as a legal assistant for her mom, who was also an attorney in Anne Arundel County.

“It’s about caring and understanding that these people are in a new and very stressful time in their life,” Arnold said of working with clients, “and they sometimes just need that helping hand – and some clients need it more than others, but that’s why we’re here and that’s kind of our mission – to make sure that the people who need us have access to us.”

Following a divorce, Arnold worked as a paralegal while raising her two young children as a single mom. As the years passed and her kids grew older, she determined to do even more for her children by one day becoming an attorney. When Arnold’s kids reached middle school, her then fiancé – now husband – was the driving factor that helped Arnold take a leap of faith and pursue law school. He told her, “Now’s the time.”

“Between him and my parents and even my ex-husband, everybody jumped in and helped with the kids, helped with whatever needed to be done so that I could work full time during the day and go to school at night,” Arnold shared of her journey to becoming an attorney. “So for four years, that’s what we did, and it really did take a village to get me through law school.”

Arnold obtained her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 2022 and worked as an associate attorney for the past two years. She was admitted to the Maryland Bar in 2022, and the District of Columbia Bar in 2024.

While in law school, Arnold was a student-attorney-mediator working with families in Baltimore City on child custody, access and support matters. She explained that in mediation, lawyers become facilitators who provide space and ideas to help people come to their own decisions about how they want to resolve a dispute. She hopes to do more mediation in the years ahead.

Though she spent her earliest years in Virginia, Arnold considers herself a Marylander. She moved to Anne Arundel County as a young girl, graduated from the Key School in Annapolis in 1997, and attended University of Maryland University College to earn her undergraduate degree. Today she resides in Arnold with her husband and their four children, who all attend Broadneck High School.

“I love to pick crabs, and I love my O’s and my Ravens,” she shared of her allegiances after living in Maryland for nearly 40 years.

Authement and Arnold are committed to serving their local community both as attorneys eager to help and as a firm that gives back. KMA Law Office has supported local nonprofits, and Authement serves on the Severna Park Community Center (SPCC) board of directors. This month, KMA Law Office is sponsoring the SPCC’s fall festival and is the lead sponsor for Art in the Park, both coming up on September 29.

“(Giving back) is super important for us as a firm because Karen and I both grew up in Anne Arundel County – this has always been home for us – so when we support the community, we are supporting our community,” Arnold said.

KMA Law Office is located at 540 Ritchie Highway, Suite 201, in Severna Park. To learn more about the services the firm offers, go to www.kma-law.org.