Attorney Ned Pillersdorf continues to fight for Eric C. Conn clients, Blackjewel miners

Attorney Ned Pillersdorf is well known across Eastern Kentucky. Notably, he took a stand for hundreds of Eric C. Conn clients whose benefits were rejected by the Social Security Administration.

"It has been tough. I live among these people."

Four years into the Conn case, Pillersdorf said he recently received the best news since the start.

"I was on the phone calling homeless shelters, calling people I know who have been sleeping in parks saying, 'you are getting your benefits back.' The judge signed the order today."

The question remains: how much longer will hundreds of others have to wait?

“This has been going on four and a half years. I don't know if we are at the end of the beginning or beginning of the end.”

Pillersdorf still has a positive message for Conn's clients.

“I know I'm a lawyer and you don't like lawyers. A lawyer got you into a lot of trouble, but there is legitimate hope on the horizon."

Now Pillersdorf is helping organize miners from Blackjewel left without a paycheck and benefits since the company filed for bankruptcy.

“The only way the miners can get any relief is they got to get into the bankruptcy court in West Virginia.”

He is a little uncertain about whether miners will get their jobs back in the end.

"I'd like to say 100% but bankruptcy court is a nasty place."

But he never gives up on people in the region

"We have a battle on our hands in West Virginia."

Something he is all too familiar with as he continues to fight and represent Eastern Kentuckians.