Like Skittles, I’ve experienced many flavors of the practice of law. I’ve worked as in-house counsel to a health care system and a Fortune 500 managed care company. I’ve worked at a mid-size medical malpractice firm, a small boutique litigation firm, and as a solo attorney. I have worked on both the plaintiff and defense sides. Given my exposure to so many flavors of the legal rainbow, I wanted to share my experience in the event someone has considered making a jump! Life circumstances have predominately accounted for my shifts, but there were other impetuses. Let me start from the beginning, a long, long time ago…
Many people ask me why I chose to specialize in health care law. First, my father is a cardiologist, and I was surrounded by physicians growing up, so representing them was something I really enjoyed. I love the art of medicine, and I felt like a pseudo-doctor using big words like “chorioamnionitis” or “encephalitis.” I was exposed to a broad array of heath care laws while competing in moot court. I was engrossed with issues such as patient-dumping and insurance companies making health care decisions on behalf of patients, even when their decisions conflicted with the attending physician. Consequently, my first job out of law school was at a medical malpractice defense firm in Houston. While working there, I also received my LLM in health law.