In 2018, after having dinner with an Alpha Chi Omega sorority sister in Washington D.C., Kelley Brooks Simoneaux called an Uber for the trip home. When the driver arrived, he refused to give her a ride.  

Because Simoneaux was in a wheelchair. 

The incident gave her a mission: Draw attention to how the world is moving forward at such a rapid pace that the disability community is being left on the curb. 

A native of Ooltewah, Tenn., Simoneaux has used a wheelchair since she was 16, when an accident involving a negligent driver and a faulty seatbelt left Simoneaux a paraplegic. Although her lower back was broken, her entire face was shattered, she remained conscious through the wreck and quickly realized that she could no longer feel her legs. Trauma treatment at a Chattanooga hospital revealed a spinal cord injury at the T-12 level.  

After multiple surgeries, Simoneaux was transferred to an Atlanta rehabilitation hospital, where she maintained her schoolwork, ran for class president from her hospital bed, and worked daily to rebuild her life from a wheelchair.  

Three months to the day of her wreck, she returned to Ooltewah High School, graduating on time as student body president, homecoming queen, and at the top of her class. 

Enrolling at Birmingham-Southern, where she majored in political science, she approached college with the same tenacity as she did her recovery. During those four years, she traveled the world (she met her husband, Bradlee Simoneaux ’08, on a college trip to Russia), participated in service projects, and invested time in advocacy projects focused on accessibility in rest stops in Alabama.  

Next came law school at the University of Tennessee, where Simoneaux traveled the country in trial competitions, served as president of the Student Bar Association and took on initiatives to increase accessibility in the community through the Knoxville Independent Living Center with the mentorship of her law professor, who was blind. She worked as a student attorney in the law school’s Innocence Clinic and spent a year focused on the exoneration of the first person in the United States who was convicted through the use mitochondrial DNA evidence. She also worked under the elected Public Defender, working in the courtroom most days to help defend the rights of her clients.  

By law school graduation in 2010, she knew exactly how she wanted to practice law: helping others who had suffered catastrophic injuries. 

Her Washington, D.C.-based firm, the Spinal Cord Injury Law Firm PLLC, focuses specifically on spinal cord injuries and fosters professional growth for people with disabilities. It is the only firm in the nation to be founded by a nationally recognized attorney who shares the experience of being in a catastrophic event. 

To do more, she created Wheel2Ride, an advocacy campaign focused on directing policy changes regarding the inclusion of individuals with mobility disabilities in using ride-sharing platforms. A Wheel2Ride survey found that 83 percent of the disability community has faced discrimination in transportation.  

“It is a slow process, but is one that I am continuing to work on,” Simoneaux says. “I want to build allies within every state to make changes in legislation.” 

She also serves as the Director of Law and Advocacy for SPINALpedia.org, an online video mentoring platform for individuals with spinal cord injuries and is on the Board of Directors for the ENDependence Center of Northern Virginia, an independent living center serving people with disabilities in Northern Virginia, and Wheel of Happiness, a nonprofit which provides wheelchairs and medical supplies to underserved communities around the world. She was also appointed to the Fairfax Area Disability Services Board and the WMATA Accessibility Advisory Council.  

The mother of three young children, she enjoys traveling the world with her family and uses any rare moment alone to practice adaptive yoga. She received the Real. Strong. Women of Distinction Award from Alpha Chi Omega in 2018 and was recognized by BSC as an Outstanding Young Alumna in 2019. 

Simoneaux says she sees reminders of BSC reflected in her day-to-day life, as the culture on campus emphasized the importance and satisfaction that can be found in helping others. 

“Absolutely take advantage of all the opportunities to get yourself off campus, engaged, and around people that are different than you,” she says. We live in such a homogeneous society, but BSC does a great job of allowing you to get outside of the classroom and engage with others.”