Our Story

How we got here

Stansberry Kinsley is a Cullman law firm with two partners and two kinds of clients: people who got hurt because of somebody else, and people whose health won't let them work anymore. The name on the door is newer than the people behind it. Between them, Amanda Stansberry and Brian Kinsley have close to fifty years of this work, in courtrooms and hearing rooms from Massachusetts to Mississippi. Here's how those two roads ended up on Second Avenue.

Amanda

Amanda grew up in Cullman. She went to Good Hope, took college classes at Wallace State while she was still in high school, then went to the University of Alabama and stayed for law school. She finished in 2004 and took her first job in legal services in Mississippi, representing people who needed a lawyer and couldn't pay for one. It's the kind of first job that sets a direction, and hers has never really changed.

She spent most of the next fifteen years practicing in Birmingham, including a decade at a firm focused on disability insurance claims, learning the ERISA and Social Security rules that decide whether a family keeps its income after an illness or injury. Birmingham Magazine named her one of the city's top ERISA attorneys in 2017 and 2018. In 2018 she opened her own practice. In 2021, Amanda became a partner in a Birmingham law firm.

Through all of it, Cullman stayed home. Amanda's kids went to Good Hope, the same as she did and the same as her parents before her.

Brian

Brian's road was longer. He was born in Boston, raised in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and earned his law degree with honors from Suffolk University. He has spent more than twenty-five years representing injured people: first at a national plaintiffs' firm in the Washington, D.C. area, then sixteen years in North Carolina, where he led a mass torts and products liability practice and served on the plaintiffs' steering committee in a federal multidistrict case over defective hip implants. When a case is bigger than one firm should carry alone, he knows which phone to pick up.

He didn't have to come to Cullman. He chose it.

One roof

On July 1, 2024, Brian joined Amanda as a partner, and for the first time personal injury and disability were under one roof. The firm kept its Birmingham office and made Cullman home base at 113 2nd Avenue NE.

In 2026, the name became Stansberry Kinsley. That's the whole change. Same people, same offices, same phone number, same way of working.

How we work

We keep our caseload small enough to know every client by name, not by file number. We tell people the truth about their case, including when it isn't good news, and if we can't help, we point them to someone who can. We prepare every case as if it's going to trial, whether or not it ever gets there. And when a case calls for more than one firm, we've worked alongside some of the largest firms in the country, and run our end of it from Cullman.

That's what "Local roots. National reach." means. It isn't a slogan. It's a description.

Where you'll find us

In the office most days. In the bleachers most Friday nights in the fall. Our name is on the scoreboard and the gym floor at Good Hope and on the Perfect Attendance Award at Holly Pond. Amanda serves on the board of the Good Samaritan Health Clinic. And since March 2026, a few times a year, we sit down on WBRC Fox 6's Good Day Alabama to answer the legal questions people actually have. There's a whole page about the community side.

Milestones

1. 1998

   Brian Kinsley graduates cum laude from Suffolk University Law School in Boston.

2. 2004

   Amanda Stansberry graduates from the University of Alabama School of Law and begins her career in legal services.

3. 2008

   Brian begins sixteen years in North Carolina, leading a mass torts and products liability practice.

4. 2017, 2018

   Birmingham Magazine names Amanda among the city's top ERISA attorneys.

5. 2021

   Amanda becomes a partner in the firm.

6. July 1, 2024

   Brian joins as partner, bringing personal injury and disability under one roof with Cullman as home base.

7. March 2026

   First Community Corner segment airs on WBRC Fox 6's Good Day Alabama.

8. 2026

   The firm becomes Stansberry Kinsley.

The name on the door is the newest thing about us. Everything behind it has been here a while, and it's staying.