Drummond Law LLC

What the firm handles

Based in Litchfield, Illinois, the firm works for individual clients across disability, injury and defense matters. The core areas are Social Security Disability, which covers both SSDI and SSI, Illinois workers' compensation, and VA disability claims for veterans. Alongside these it takes personal injury, criminal and traffic defense, and estate documents such as wills, trusts and powers of attorney.

Much of this is claims work against a large institution. The firm handles cases at the application stage, on appeal, and at administrative hearings. It represents clients against insurance carriers and government agencies, which sit on the other side of most disability and injury files.

How these claims usually move

A Social Security disability claim generally starts with an application to the agency. If the first decision is a denial, it moves to reconsideration, and from there it can reach a hearing before an administrative law judge. Illinois workers' compensation disputes run through the state Workers' Compensation Commission, which hears arguments over benefits and medical treatment. VA disability claims follow their own federal track through the Department of Veterans Affairs, with medical evidence and rating decisions at the center. These stages explain why disability and injury matters can take months to resolve, and why steady case preparation counts at each step.

Injury and defense work

On the personal injury side, the firm deals with insurance carriers over medical costs and lost income, the same adversary that shows up in workers' compensation files. The criminal and traffic defense work runs through the county courts, where charges include traffic and DUI matters as well as more serious cases that carry a record. Estate documents such as wills and powers of attorney round out the individual services, and they tend to bring in clients who are not in dispute but want their affairs set down clearly.

How the team is built

Four people carry the practice, and three of them share the Drummond name.

Peter C. Drummond

Peter C. Drummond founded the firm in 1978. He earned his law degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and his bachelor's degree from Knox College. His work centers on workers' compensation and Social Security disability, and he has represented injured workers and disability claimants across Illinois for decades. That long focus is the thread the rest of the practice grew around.

Katherine A. Drummond

Katherine A. Drummond joined the firm as a partner in 2022. She holds a J.D. from Barry University School of Law, earned in 2007, and she previously practiced in the Quad Cities and worked as an Assistant State's Attorney in Florida. Her cases cover criminal defense, DCFS appeals, driver's license reinstatements, juvenile law, traffic and conservation defense, and workers' compensation and disability benefits.

Kaylan Schardan

Kaylan Schardan joined as an associate in 2026 and holds a 2021 J.D. from Saint Louis University School of Law. Before this role she was the staff and intake attorney for the Illinois Innocence Project and an associate public defender, where she handled criminal post-conviction litigation and led investigations into wrongful convictions. Her practice includes criminal defense, clemency, post-conviction work, juvenile law, traffic and DUI defense, and workers' compensation.

Rebecca M. Drummond

Rebecca M. Drummond joined in 2024 as a federally licensed Social Security personal representative. She holds a bachelor's degree in History from Knox College, along with real estate and insurance brokerage licenses. Federal rules let non-attorney representatives who meet Social Security's requirements handle claims and appear at hearings, and that is the role she fills. She supports disability clients through the claims process and related case preparation.

Taken together, the group mixes a long-serving founder with newer attorneys drawn from prosecution, public defense and innocence work. Those prior roles line up with the firm's growth into criminal and post-conviction cases over the past few years. The presence of a dedicated Social Security representative also signals how much of the routine work involves disability claims.

How the firm has grown

The firm began in 1978 as a small-town practice focused on injured workers and disability claimants. In 2014 it widened its work across central and southern Illinois, and the hires in 2022, 2024 and 2026 have added criminal, disability and support capacity. One point is worth flagging for a reader who checks sources: the about and attorneys pages date the founding to 1978, while the footer reads since 1976. As a reviewer, I read 1978 as the firmer figure, because the site gives it as an explicit founding year while it shows 1976 only as a tagline.

The 2014 expansion marks the point where the firm describes reaching beyond its home area into central and southern Illinois. The timeline the site lays out gives a plain sequence: a founding in 1978, a partner joining in 2022, a support representative in 2024, and an associate in 2026. Each of those dates appears on the firm's own attorneys and about pages.

Where the firm works

The about page describes coverage across central and southern Illinois, the region around the Litchfield office. The footer reaches wider, listing Illinois, Missouri, Western Kentucky and Indiana. For a practice built on Social Security and VA claims, that wider map makes sense, because those benefits run on federal rules that apply the same way across state lines.

Travel is part of this kind of work. Disability and workers' compensation hearings often bring lawyers and clients to regional offices and hearing sites, so a firm that lists several states is telling clients how far it will go to appear for a claim. The steady base, though, is the central and southern Illinois area named on the about page.

A reviewer's view

The clearest signal here is range. Disability and workers' compensation work, the founder's long focus, runs alongside criminal, DUI and traffic defense brought in by the newer attorneys. In my opinion, that pairing suits people who arrive with an injury or benefits claim and later need help with a separate legal problem, since the same office can pick it up.

Two things are easy to check from the pages. The firm names each attorney's law school and graduation year, and it lists the practice areas plainly. That level of detail helps someone comparing options, because a reader can match a specific need, say a DUI charge or an SSDI denial, to the person who handles it.

The firm works from a single Litchfield office and represents clients through the Social Security, workers' compensation and VA systems, at both the application and hearing stages. Its named team runs from a founder who started in 1978 to an associate who arrived in 2026, with a licensed Social Security representative supporting the disability side.