Kelly has been a Knoxville native since the age of three when her parents moved here from New Orleans. She graduated from Bearden High School, then received her B.A. from Rhodes College in Memphis and a Paralegal degree from Tulane University. She received her J.D. from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 1991 and the next day became an associate of Guyton & Frère, working for her mother, Arline Guyton and her husband, Matt.
In 1998 she was certified as an elder law specialist by the Tennessee Commission on Continuing Legal Education and Specialization. In 2006 she was inducted to the Council of Advanced Practitioners of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA). With her husband, Matt, she is one of only 64 out of 4,500 elder law attorneys to be honored with this peer induction. In 2007 Kelly was also inducted by her peers as a Fellow to the Knoxville Bar Foundation, a program that publicly recognizes and honors attorneys who have distinguished themselves in the practice of law and in service to the Knoxville community.
Kelly lectures frequently in the community about legal issues affecting seniors, and is a regular guest speaker for the Knoxville-Knox County Office on Aging, Alzheimer’s Tennessee and the Knoxville Bar Association.
Kelly loves to geocache (www.geocache.com), and is always planning the next trip with Matt in their 31′ Airstream Classic trailer.