Prior to becoming an attorney and mediator, Attorney/Dr. Cuthrell transitioned from direct care and consultant roles to clinical director and senior executive positions in the behavioral health industry.  She has developed program integrity processes and conducted regulatory compliance audits to investigate/review allegations of Medicaid fraud, Stark Law violations, Anti-Kickback violations, and False Claims Act violations. She has reviewed complaints regarding breaches/violations of confidentiality/HIPAA/ PHI/42 CFR Part 2, and data security/privacy. She has participated in provider appeal processes and mediated/negotiated retractions and recoupment of funds. She has evaluated regulatory and accreditation requirements as well as reviewed compliance standards for clinical and medical licenses, service definitions, clinical coverage policies, and COMAR regulations. She has designed and overseen integrated services structures at a health department, substance use services on the grounds of a hospital, and behavioral health trauma-informed services at a jail/detention center, community sites, and an organization. She has identified service gaps provisions by gathering and analyzing statewide and countywide extrapolated data.  She has advocated for housing and workplace reasonable accommodations for individuals with behavioral health diagnoses and accessible clinical services for individuals with  HIV/AIDS and cancer. She has worked in the public school system, and thereafter, combined her clinical and legal knowledge to advocate for education rights, accommodations, and modifications (Individualized Education Plans, 504 Plans, and Behavior Intervention Plans) for students. She has experience assessing the mental well-being of and providing clinical services to First Responders, including law enforcement officers and medical professionals, as well as security guard officers, teachers, clinicians, clergy officials, and executives during and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, including crisis intervention teams and crisis response debriefings. 

Attorney/Dr. Cuthrell has experience executing contracts with local management entities/managed care organizations and private/commercial insurance carriers. She has provided oversight of federal and state contracts (prime and subcontracts) to evaluate contract formation and compliance with contract deliverables. She has drafted and reviewed solicitations and proposals and participated in awards processes. She has written and secured grants for entities and managed grant administration processes.  She has provided fiscal oversight of cost reimbursements, fee-for-service expenditures, procurement, and budget modifications. She has chaired several government committees as well as served as the chair of a board of directors for a corporation. She has developed bylaws, articles of incorporation, and operating agreements as well as served on bylaws committees.  Additionally, Attorney/Dr. Cuthrell has provided human resources guidance to companies and served as agencies/providers’ liaison to administrative service organizations, Medicaid/Medicare, private/commercial insurance carriers, local and state government regulatory compliance officials, and attorneys. Her expertise is derived from working and consulting in the private and public sectors (small and large entities), including county government and state government in Maryland and North Carolina.

In Maryland, Attorney/Dr. Cuthrell served in a state-level director position vetted by the Maryland Governor’s Appointment Office where she oversaw a system of 3,500 behavioral health providers/agencies and psychiatric hospitals with annual expenditures exceeding  $1.6 billion. She participated in the preparation of positions on legislative bills and served on a committee charged with analyzing compliance standards with the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act. She co-chaired a state-level conflict of interest committee to review the structures of Local Addictions Authorities, Core Service Agencies, and Local Behavioral Health Authorities. She was essential in overseeing Maryland’s statewide mandate for certain community-based behavioral health providers/programs to secure national accreditation and license under COMAR 10.63 regulations, while simultaneously serving a key role in the variance process. During her tenure at a health department, Attorney/Dr. Cuthrell served as chief of a behavioral health bureau and oversaw a metropolitan countywide system of behavioral health providers/agencies and centers. She also oversaw professionals who assisted the health department/county in maintaining state, federal, and local compliance with laws and enforcement provisions prohibiting illegal sales of tobacco, tobacco products, and tobacco paraphernalia to minors. Additionally, while at a health department, she directed a team and organized a substance use walk-in clinic on the grounds of a hospital, ensured compliance with substance use recovery and transitional housing, designed and implemented a mental health peer recovery support program for a detention center, designed quality assurance/quality improvement (QA/QI) protocols for compliance measures, oversaw the 8-505 court-ordered evaluation process of referred defendants as well as assisted in the development of a program to link peer recovery specialists with substance use postpartum and pregnant women and newborns. Attorney/Dr. Cuthrell also testified before the Maryland House of Delegates regarding matters related to behavioral health treatment and services surrounding the opioid epidemic, naloxone, and peer recovery specialists’ initiatives within a detention center and county, trauma-informed care approaches, and evidence-based/best practices.

In North Carolina, Attorney/Dr. Cuthrell gained significant experience working on state and county government levels and thereafter worked for corporations/businesses where she served in director roles ensuring regulatory compliance (federal and state requirements) of behavioral health programs and operational practices while managing multi-million dollar budgets. She was instrumental in providing behavioral health consulting services to several providers that became a certified Critical Access Behavioral Health Agency (CABHA), a statewide certification requirement for certain community-based behavioral health providers to secure national accreditation and meet quality management, training, medical, and clinical standards. She is the owner of a behavioral health agency and operated a CABHA, securing the CABHA’s three-year national accreditation three consecutive times. She also designed an outpatient psychiatric triage staffed with psychiatrists and clinicians, organized behavioral health services and programs in several counties, and assisted with the development of a utilization compliance and auditing system.  She has expertly combined her clinical expertise and legal knowledge to restructure her behavioral health agency to focus specifically on court-ordered and non-court-ordered specialized evaluations and clinical testimony,  comprehensive clinical assessments (mental health and substance use), outpatient therapy, trauma-informed legal advocacy, trauma-focused therapy, specialty programs, immigration clinical services, immigration psychological evaluations, emotional support animal (ESA) service, employee assistance program (EAP) service,  behavioral health regulatory and corporate compliance/ethics training, accreditation compliance workshops, and providing behavioral health consulting services to agencies/providers, licensed professionals, law firms, and attorneys. Additionally, nominated by several behavioral health providers from different counties within a catchment area, Attorney/Dr. Cuthrell was approved by and chaired a local management entity/managed care organization’s Global Continuous Quality Improvement Committee with a focus on quality assurance/quality improvement, compliance measures, data-driven outcomes and decision-making, quality of and access to care/services, cultural and linguistic competence, strategic approaches to increase adherence to regulatory requirements, and identified geographical service gaps and needs.

Attorney/Dr. Cuthrell holds a Juris Doctor (J.D.) and a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.). She has completed MD1 through MD5 in medical school with the future aspiration to combine her legal, clinical, and medical knowledge.  In addition to being an attorney, she is a  Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor, National Certified Counselor, Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialist, Clinically Certified Sex Offender Treatment Specialist,  Clinically Certified Cognitive Behavioral Therapist, Certified Clinical Trauma Professional, and an immigration psychological/clinical/forensic evaluator. She has conducted clinical testimony and composed court-ordered and non-court ordered mental health, substance use, and sex offender-specific evaluations, and other specialized clinical evaluations as well as completed risk and safety assessments. She has assessed individuals’ and families’ clinical aspects at the request of court/legal officials, clinicians, department of social services, behavioral health providers, residential treatment facilities, and local management entities/managed care organizations. At the request of corporations, Attorney/Dr. Cuthrell has evaluated and provided treatment to individuals and families seeking employee assistance program (EAP) services. She understands how clinical and legal ramifications interface with immigration psychological/clinical/forensic evaluations, human trafficking evaluations, sexual abuse evaluations, child custody and parenting evaluations, trauma-informed legal advocacy evaluations, and domestic violence evaluations. She also understands how to validate and analyze the integrity of evaluations/assessments from clinical and legal standpoints. Additionally, she has appeared before Social Security Administrative Law Judges to testify and present clinical information and advocacy.

In law school, Attorney/Dr. Cuthrell received the CALI Award for earning the highest grade in her legal writing class. She elevated her legal skills by competing in the Susie M. Sharp Intra-School Moot Court Competition in which she and her law school team member presented legal oral arguments and demonstrated legal advocacy skills, advancing to the octo-finals.  She developed a passion to devote her legal writing and oral argument skills to advocate for the unique needs of individuals, families, and businesses/providers. Attorney/Dr. Cuthrell graduated from law school with pro bono honors.

Attorney/Dr. Cuthrell took part in several notable legal opportunities, paving the foundation for her legal career. She learned the principles of employment and labor law and fundamental strategies of depositions, mediation, negotiation, consultation, and civil litigation procedures as a legal intern at Gray Newell Thomas, LLP. She acquired practical legal skills to address matters related to healthcare regulatory & compliance law, Medicaid law, malpractice, professional license defense, and corporate compliance & ethics law as a legal mentee at Dana G. Jones Health Care Associates, PLLC. As a student-attorney in the Charlotte School of Law Immigration Clinic, she volunteered in pro bono community events, actively participated in immigration workshops, observed immigration court proceedings,  assisted individuals with various immigration matters, and provided individuals with resources related to U.S. Citizenship and Naturalization, Asylum, Domestic Violence, U visas, T visas, Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), and international laws. She also served as a legal mentee at Thoronka Law Offices, LLC, where she enhanced her knowledge of legal strategies for immigration law as well as her understanding of international law matters. During her tenure at an agency, she completed and managed immigration documents/forms for H1-B visa processes. Through legal mentorship with Attorney Terriss Richardson-Rivers, Attorney/Dr. Cuthrell gained an in-depth understanding of social security disability law. She has served as a contract associate attorney at a legal solutions entity to conduct pre-litigation, eDiscovery, and compliance reviews of legal documents. Additionally, she serves as a volunteer mediator with a community program to mediate specific matters and with a county government human rights commission to mediate incidents/allegations of hate, violence, and complaints/charges of discrimination. 

In medical school, Attorney/Dr. Cuthrell served as the principal investigator/lead researcher of a research team, won third place in a medical school research competition, and the research was published in an international scholarly journal. She was a  research mentor assistant, research II class teaching assistant (TA), and behavioral science class teaching assistant (TA) in medical school. She has guided several medical school students to finalize research projects to compete in research competitions in which some mentees ranked in the top three positions. She has authored and co-authored numerous research articles that are published in scholarly journals. She has served as a writing coach and editor to assist students and professionals to publish research.  Her research findings and dissertation content have been cited in several researchers’ published articles, resulting in over 500 citations of her research.

Attorney/Dr. Cuthrell is a published author and researcher from North Carolina, but she has lived in Maryland for several years.  She and her family have also lived in the United States of America, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Saint Vincent Island, and Spain, and she is proficient in Spanish. Her abroad experience fostered her heightened level of respect, understanding, and appreciation for the unique needs and interests of individuals and families (citizens and non-citizens of the United States). Her personal experience and endeavors have empowered her to serve as a mentor and advocate for individuals with challenging circumstances and limited community resources. She is also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Attorney/Dr.  Kimberly Morton Cuthrell’s passion, commitment to advocacy, and professional experience translate into zealous representation for her clients and effective and efficient implementation of strategies to address legal, mediation, and consulting matters. Her passion to provide legal representation to the ‘whole-person’ inspired her to combine her legal and behavioral health clinical skills with medical knowledge resulting in her attending medical school. In doing so, she aspires to provide a comprehensive array of medical and legal integrated services with the highest level of quality, integrity, and ethical compliance