University of Virginia School of Law
In many ways, Ben Keller’s life turned out as planned: as the son of a federal public defender and a town councilor, he knew from a young age that law and public service of some sort would shape his future.
An Unexpected Move
But for the New Jersey native, the plot twist came in the form of a move to Tulsa, Oklahoma. After graduating from the University of Michigan with a degree in Public Policy, Keller joined Teach for America, an organization that hires college graduates from top universities to work in Title I schools.
His application asked that he rank his top ten choices geographically. He chose Hawaii first, and Tulsa, dead last. “I’d never been here and didn’t know a single person,” he recalls. But when the letter placing him in Tulsa arrived, a voice came to him in the form of a Nike slogan: “just do it.”
After a two-year stint teaching sixth grade (which he describes as “the hardest job in the world”), Keller worked on an Oklahoma political campaign and for the Urban Leaders Fellowship, designing policy solutions for then-State Representative Monroe Nichols, Tulsa’s current mayor.
First "Brush" With the Law
When that work ended, he landed as a law clerk at Smolen & Roytman. “When we first met, Dan [Smolen] said that I couldn’t do anything for him—that I had zero experience in law,” says Keller. “But he ultimately took a chance on me.”
Keller’s first trial as a law clerk proved formative. Beat up in Tulsa County jail, the client, Jesse Dalton, won a $175,000 judgment.“The whole experience—doing exhibits and planning for a trial demystified the whole process,” he says. “Just having the family in the courtroom, and these wrongs all spelled out. It’s why you do this.”
An Introduction to Plaintiff's Law
Two years later, in 2022, Keller moved to Charlottesville,Virginia, to attend law school at the University of Virginia, where he co-founded a club specifically for plaintiff’s law—Smolen & Roytman’s specialty. “Plaintiff’s law can do so much good for so many,” he says of the practice of people or entities bringing lawsuits against other parties or institutions. “It’s a good mix of getting private firm experience while doing a public service.”
A Return to Smolen & Roytman
After graduation, in a full-circle moment, Keller—who admits to walking down the streets of an empty downtown Tulsa on his first night in the city and thinking “what have I done?”—chose to return to Smolen & Roytman. He describes himself as a “Swiss army knife”-type lawyer—in other words, a generalist who goes wherever the firm’s needs take him—but his strongest passions lie in civil rights law.
Continuing the legacy of a family that cares about “community and politics and good governance” ultimately trumped the lure of a big-city paycheck Keller might otherwise have chosen. “My dad loved being a federal public defender and representing people who were indigent and charged with federal crimes,” says Keller of his father, who passed away last year, and whom he describes as a “huge influence.” “I definitely see a lot of parallels in the work that we do at Smolen & Roytman.”
