McKinney Joins Arkansas WC Commission

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee named Karen Hart McKinney of Little Rock to the state Workers’ Compensation Commission. According to the WCC, McKinney will replace Joe Yates, who’s retiring from the three-member commission. She will fill the remainder of Yates’ term, which ends Dec. 5, 2004.

The commission administers and enforces the state’s workers’ compensation law, adjudicating all work-related injury claims by employees against their employers or insurance carriers. Since June 1999, McKinney has served as one of the commission’s administrative law judges, hearing and administering claims from throughout the state.

From April 1996 until her appointment as an administrative law judge, McKinney was a law clerk for the commission.

McKinney served as an attorney for the Barber McCaskill Amsler Jones & Hale firm of Little Rock from May 1992 until joining the Workers’ Compensation Commission in 1996. While she was in private practice, McKinney specialized in insurance defense litigation with an emphasis on tort liability, product liability and workers’ compensation.