Vandana Kamboj | Gade & Parekh, LLP. | Sacramento, California

My path to disability law was not a straight line — it was a journey, and every turn left me better equipped for the work I do today.

I grew up in San Jose and earned dual bachelor’s degrees in Physiology and Administration of Justice from San Jose State University, volunteering throughout college in the emergency department at Kaiser Permanente. Helping people at their most vulnerable is what stayed with me. I went on to earn my Juris Doctorate from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, where I also interned at the California Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney General, and built the brief-writing foundation that still shapes how I write today.

Over a twenty-year legal career, I have practiced across several areas of law. I started on the defense side, representing insurance companies and self-insured businesses, which gave me a direct view into how insurers assess claims and where they push back. I then opened my own firm, where I practiced plaintiff’s personal injury law and estate planning for fourteen years. When the opportunity came to join Gade & Parekh, LLP as a partner and focus my practice on Social Security disability law, I recognized it immediately as the place where everything I had learned finally fit together.

Disability law is where my journey led me and where the work feels real. My clients are people whose lives have been genuinely upended by illness or injury, many of whom have already been denied once or twice, and who are trying to make sense of a federal system that is not designed to be easy. I am honest with my clients about what to expect and why the process looks the way it does. I believe an informed client is a better-positioned client. I explain how the process works and why consistent, well-documented medical care matters as much as the legal argument. Clients have shared that simply understanding the system made one of the most difficult times of their lives feel more manageable.

My science background shapes how I approach every case. Where many attorneys see a medical file, I see a clinical picture: the relationship between a diagnosis, a medication regimen, and what a person can actually sustain over the course of a full workday. I understand what my clients are describing when they talk about pain, fatigue, or cognitive fog, and I know how to build that into the legal record in a way that counts. I have also navigated my own serious orthopedic injury and a years-long recovery, an experience that gave me firsthand understanding of what it means to have your life shaped by your body’s limitations. That is not something I learned from a textbook.

I stay involved with my clients throughout the entire process and do not consider a won case the end of the relationship. Several clients still call with updates long after their cases have closed — even those whose cases did not go the way we had hoped. I genuinely like hearing from them.

________________________________________

I live in Placer County with my husband and two sons. Our household also includes Luna (a golden retriever), Sherlock Bones (a beagle who lives up to his name), and Raptor and Artemis, two Ackie monitors (lizards) who are as interesting as they sound. Outside the office, I hike, bike local trails, and paddleboard, habits I trace back to weekend trips with my father to the Evergreen Valley hills and Yosemite National Park. I also volunteer at the Placer County SPCA, tend my garden, and browse bookstores whenever I can.

Attorney Vandana Kamboj — At a Glance

• 20 Years of Legal Experience
• Practice Focused on Social Security Disability (SSDI & SSI) Claims, Appeals, and Personal Injury
• Represents Disability Claimants Throughout the United States
• Speaks to Medical Organizations, Community Resource Clinics, and Support Groups on Social Security Disability
• Member, National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives (NOSSCR)
• J.D., University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law
• B.S., San Jose State University, Dual Majors in Physiology and Administration of Justice
• Languages: English, Hindi and Punjabi