Following her graduation from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville with a nursing degree, Kay worked as a graduate nurse in pediatrics at Memorial Hospital in Springfield. After graduation from Creighton University Law School in 1989, she worked as an Illinois Assistant Attorney General for two years representing state agencies, officials and employees in the defense of civil rights litigation and employment-related matters before various commissions and boards. In 1992, she joined Heyl Royster in the Edwardsville office where she practiced medical malpractice defense, civil rights litigation and also defended major corporations in asbestos litigation. In 2006, she joined Schremf, Kelly, Napp and Darr. Kay now primarily defends municipalities and townships throughout the Southern Illinois area in a wide variety of cases including but not limited to auto accidents, trip and falls, civil rights, employment releated matters and even property damage. She has had several successful arbitrations, mediations and jury trials in her career. She has also now written several appellate briefs and has successfully argued those appeals before the Seventh Circuit of the United State District Court and the Fifth District of the State of Illinois.