After graduating from Auburn University with his Master’s Degree in Business Administration in 2003 and several years in business, Michael then graduated in the top of his law school class from Faulkner University’s Thomas Goode Jones School of Law in 2008. While at Faulkner, Michael received the Eagle Scholarship for academic excellence. He was also active in the Christian Legal Society, and a member of the Thomas Goode Jones Board of Advocates (Charter Member), Faulkner Law Review, the American Association for Justice Moot Trial Team (2008 Regional Semi-Finalist), and the Phi Alpha Delta Legal Fraternity. Michael clerked at the prestigious law firm Haskell, Slaughter, Young, & Rediker in 2007 before joining as an Associate Attorney at the firm upon graduation in 2008. At HSY, he practiced in civil litigation, defending businesses of all kinds for five years. In 2013, Michael started his own firm, a full-service solo practice that focused primarily on estate planning, probate estate administration, and personal injury cases. He has extensive experience both advising clients who have been named as personal representatives of an estate, and as an executor and administrator of estates himself in the probate courts of Alabama. He has litigated complex disputes in the probate court as well. Michael also serves as the trustee for multiple trusts in Montana and Alabama. He is a member of the Wealth Counsel, a national organization of trusts and estates attorneys and other legal, tax and business professionals who design sophisticated planning techniques for individuals and families, and is a Personal Family  Lawyer®, a national designation for trust and estate attorneys who focus on Life and Legacy Planning.

Michael founded Kelley Legacy Law because he has time and again seen the family conflict and brokenness that comes from ineffective estate planning that ends up in the court system and he felt a calling to do something about it by educating and empowering his clients to make the right decisions in advance to keep the loved ones they leave behind out of court and conflict when the time comes.