Bios
- Admitted to practice to the Commonwealth of Kentucky bar in 1999
- Admitted to practice to the Washington state bar in 1993
- Member in good standing with both bars
- Member of the Fayette County Bar Association
- Member of Kentucky Academy of Trial Attorneys (KATA)
- Member of the Criminal Defense Attorneys Association (Washington)
J.R. Welch was born June 11, 1966, in Dansville, New York, a small town approximately 60 miles south of Rochester. As a child, his family moved around quite a bit because of his father's work as a physician and member of the U.S. Army Reserve.
As a result, he has lived in several areas of the country, which has given him a good feel for the pulse of America, and the wonderful people who inhabit this great country of ours. He has lived in not only the Western region of upstate New York but also in Washington, D.C., our nation's capital, as well as Galveston, Texas, Western Washington state, and of course our beautiful Bluegrass State of Kentucky.
Mr. Welch received his bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Kentucky in 1989, where he majored in marketing, and obtained a minor in political science while also earning a varsity letter for UK as a catcher on the baseball team under former Head Coach Keith Madison and Associate Coach John Butler. Prior to attending law school, Welch played five years of semi-professional baseball for the Everett Merchants Baseball Club in Everett, Washington, and was a member of their National Championship Team that won the semi-pro National Title in 1988 in Wichita, Kansas.
During his playing career, J.R. Welch played with or against over 35 players who eventually went on to have baseball careers in the major leagues. In 2004, Welch spent a few months as a part-time radio color commentator for UK home baseball games but is now active in the game only at the coaching level, where he spends his spare time as an assistant baseball coach at a local Lexington high school.
Mr. Welch attended Seattle University Law School in Washington State where he obtained his juris doctorate degree and practiced law for five years before moving back to his beloved adopted state of Kentucky. J.R. Welch began his legal career in the Bluegrass State when he moved back to Kentucky and lived in Corbin for a year. While working for attorney Darrell Saunders, Welch co-authored the legal brief in the case of Kentucky Off-Track Betting, Inc. vs. McBurney, 993 S.W.2d 946, which was successfully argued and won before the Supreme Court of Kentucky in 1999, Welch's very first year as a member of the Kentucky bar.
"Hitting one out of the park, right off the bat," so to speak, was nothing new for Welch. He holds the distinction of being the only UK baseball player in school history to have his first and last varsity hits go for home runs, with the former coming against Morehead State University, in his first season, and the latter as a senior against the University of Louisville in his final game as a collegiate athlete. Welch brings a competitive nature and aggressive spirit from his playing days on the baseball field to his legal career.
Some attorneys are afraid to go to court and hesitate to take on challenging cases. J.R. Welch is definitely not one of them. If you want an attorney who will zealously pursue your legal rights for you, do yourself a favor and retain his services.