James Hekel is an administrative appeals attorney who is using his legal writing skills to help the Social Security Administration reduce its backlog of disability cases as part of its Temporary Adjudication Augmentation Strategy.
Until recently, James was in private practice in Nepal. He was sworn into Maryland Bar at the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu. While in Nepal, he worked with some of the brightest and most ambitious attorneys in the country as part of a dynamic and client-focused corporate law practice group at Gandhi & Associates. He helped international clients reorganize their businesses in Nepal, raise funds in the U.S. for hydropower projects in Nepal, and helped Nepali clients negotiate hotel management agreements with major international hotel management companies.
James graduated from the American University Washington College of Law as a Myers Scholar. As a Dean’s Fellow, he helped Associate Dean Robert Dinerstein research disability legislation. As a student attorney in the Civil Advocacy Clinic, he assisted a family of recent immigrants to the U.S. navigate complex American immigration laws and helped a client write her will. He also interned at the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Transportation. As a Community Host for the U.S. Department of State’s Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program, he hosted foreign legal scholars and helped them to navigate the American legal education process.