Judge Kenneth Ballard was born in 1974 and grew up in Charleston. He graduated from George Washington High School in 1992. He was a member of the 1991 AAA Boys West Virginia Cross County Championship team and he was the AAA boy 800 meter State Champion.

He has a 1997 bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Marshall University and a 2001 law degree magna cum laude from the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, where he was an associate editor of the Law Review.

After graduating from Marshall University, he worked for a year as an Environmental Scientist for Roy F. Weston. After graduating from law school he worked at the Charleston firm Bickley & Jacobs, where he had worked during summers since high school. He then opened his own practice in 2004. He also worked as a Kanawha County Mental Hygiene Commissioner from 2006-2008.

He is admitted to practice before The West Virginia Supreme Court and the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.

He was elected to the Eleventh Family Court Circuit (Kanawha County) in 2008 and re-elected in 2016. He is the past president and president-elect of the Family Court Judges Association. He is also the Kanawha County Juvenile Drug Court Judge. On April 26, 2021, Judge Ballard was appointed by the Governor to the circuit court seat that became vacant when former Kanawha County Judge Tod Kaufman retired.

Judge Ballard is a softball coach of Mountaineer Little League and a Boy Scout Troop committee member. He is married to Allison Ballard and they have three children.