Robert Kielian was born in Joliet, Illinois. He graduated from Troy Grade School and Joliet Township High School, West Campus. After high school he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force where he served in Vietnam and Great Britain before receiving an honorable discharge.
Robert Kielian attended Queen Mary College in London, England before graduating from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. He earned his Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from The Law School at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa in 1979.
Robert Kielian is admitted to practice law in the State of Illinois, the U.S. District Courts for the Northern and Central Districts of Illinois, and the U.S. Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit. He has more recently been admitted to practice before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.
Robert Kielian's first work as an attorney was for Prairie State Legal Services. After heading his own general law firm for two years and then working for another two years with a litigation law firm, he and his wife, attorney Jacqueline Walther, established their current law firm in 1988.
Since 1980 Robert Kielian has represented individuals who have been denied disability benefits by the Social Security Administration. He has addressed many groups and organizations, both big and small, about Social Security disability issues.
For many years Robert Kielian has been a sustaining member of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants' Representatives (NOSSCR). He is a former chairman of the Social Security Committee of the Chicago Bar Association.
