August 8, 2025 • 53 mins
Alé Dalton, Partner, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, speaks with Tenia L. Clayton, Associate, Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC, and Caroline K. Abbott, Associate, Greenberg Traurig LLP, about life as a health law associate at a large firm. They discuss what drew them to health law and their particular firm, how to remain resilient in the face of unexpected challenges, what a typical day looks like, how they’ve gotten involved in AHLA, finding the right firm culture, and what they would say now to their undergrad selves. From AHLA’s Early Career Professionals Council.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:05):
This episode of AHLA's Speaking of Health Law is
brought to you by AHLA membersand donors like you.
For more information, visitamericanhealthlaw.org.
SPEAKER_05 (00:17):
Welcome to today's episode of Speaking of Health
Law brought to you by theAmerican Health Law Association
and the Early CareerProfessionals Council.
The Early Career ProfessionalsCouncil is a forum for the
discussion of issues pertainingto early career professionals
and students in the healthcareand health law world.
I'm Allie Dalton and I'm yourhost for today.
I'm a partner at Bradley where Iget to help clients navigate
(00:38):
deals and day-to-day operationsin a highly regulated industry.
I also have the privilege ofserving as the chair of the
Early Career ProfessionalsCouncil.
Today, Today's episode is allabout the life of healthcare
associates at large firms.
Our guests for today are TaniaClayton, who's an associate at
Baker Donaldson, and CarolineAbbott, who's an associate at
(00:58):
Greenberg Torgue.
We hope this conversation willhelp showcase the opportunities
available to law firm associatesand early career professionals
who might be interested inbecoming law firm associates and
focusing on healthcare law andwhat life looks like in this
role.
Please note that the viewsexpressed today are our own and
not that of our employers.
So without further delay,welcome to the podcast, y'all.
(01:22):
Hi, thanks for the welcome.
SPEAKER_00 (01:23):
Yeah, thank you for having us.
SPEAKER_05 (01:25):
Okay, to start, Caroline, could you share a
little bit about your journeyinto health law and what drew
you into this area of practice?
I think you have a little bit ofa unique fun fact about yourself
that I think our listeners mightfind very interesting.
SPEAKER_00 (01:39):
Yeah, yeah, happy to.
Yeah, so I grew up in Nashville.
I am currently based inWashington, D.C., but as a
result of that, I very much grewup in the healthcare space.
My mom is, and it was a generalcounsel, chief legal officer
in-house at several differenthospital systems and provider
(02:02):
organizations, and I very muchgrew up, you know, under her
deaths, quite literally, with mycolored pencils and goldfish.
And so I really had kind of anexposure to this kind of law
from a very early age, that thatwas an option, that it's not
(02:24):
just litigation and corporateexclusively in those big
categories.
And the rest of my family islikewise in health care in some
capacity.
My dad was a nurse, and mygrandmother you know, the lead
at the radiology tech of one ofthe more prominent physician
practices in Nashville.
So I had that kind of exposurevery early on, but I also had
(02:48):
exposure not just to the factthat you could do health law,
but that there was just such arange of what you could do in
health law.
Like you can do corporate, youcan do labor and employment, you
can, I mean, just all of theserange of things that it wasn't
just these kind of really,really high level categories
that you that you could take apath on.
SPEAKER_05 (03:08):
That's great.
Thank you.
I love that fun fact about yourmom.
And I had a chance to meet herat the HLA Transactions
Conference earlier this year.
And it was really great to seeboth of y'all practicing and
doing your thing.
Tania, could you share a littlebit about your journey into
health law and what drew you tothis area of practice?
I think something that ourguests might find or our
(03:30):
listeners might find interestingis that you sort of went in with
that focus and got a chance toreally focus your law school
classes on health law.
So we'd love to hear a littlebit more about that
SPEAKER_02 (03:40):
yeah um I think my my story is similar to
Caroline's in that I maybe gotsome exposure to health law
sooner than others but it'sdifferent from hers which I also
love because we're kind ofhighlighting the different paths
that people can take and I soI'm a first generation law
student um currently a fifthyear associate in Baker
Donaldson's health law practicegroup um also from Nashville so
(04:00):
that's another fun fact aboutthis group um But anyway, I
spent my entire childhood sayingthat I was going to be an
anesthesiologist specifically.
I don't know why.
I think I just thought that, youknow, it was an important job
and would set me up for the kindof lifestyle that I wanted.
But it turns out I hate science.
So my pre-med dreams quicklywent out the window.
(04:22):
But I did my undergrad at EmoryUniversity.
And, you know, Emory isbasically right down the street
from the CDC.
And so it has a very heavypublic health policy.
presence in Atlanta.
And so I changed my major tohuman health.
And so that's where I started toget an interest in more of like
a health care policy and a legalstandpoint.
(04:45):
And then from there, justwanting to move back home to
Nashville, Belmont actually hasa health law certificate
program.
So I was able to kind of earlyon get some exposure to fraud
and abuse, corporate issues.
We have a health caretransactions moot court team
that I participated in.
And I think all of that reallyhelped set me up for this career
(05:07):
in health law.
And again, just being inNashville with it being such a
heavy healthcare town, it allkind of just fit into place that
way.
So I love that our stories are alittle bit different, but I
think Caroline and I also cameto health law a little bit
sooner than maybe some othersmay have.
SPEAKER_05 (05:24):
Yes.
And if you are someone who'slistening and feeling like, oh
my goodness, am I behind becausemy mom or my parent is not a
health law lawyer, or I didn'tgo to a law school or didn't
study or major in anythingrelated to health, just know
that I'm proof that you candefinitely do it while at a law
firm, not really knowinganything about health law,
(05:46):
similar to y'all, I'm based outof Nashville.
And so as a summer associatehere, it was impossible to miss
the presence of healthcare as anindustry and a potential
opportunity as a rising or anaspiring lawyer.
And so that's sort of how I fellinto it.
Certainly wish I would have hadmore access to health law
classes and all the fancy thingsthat I feel like law students
(06:07):
have now.
Though my law school offers acertificate now as well.
And so it's really cool to seehow it's developed into this
practice area that a lot offolks know about early on as
they start their careers Tania,could you share a little bit
more about how you got your jobat your firm and any experiences
(06:28):
that helped shape your careerdirection?
You touched a little bit on thatwhile being at Emory and that
access to the CDC, but how didyou get to where you are today?
SPEAKER_02 (06:37):
Yeah, so back in my day, it was not as common in
Nashville to have 1L summerassociates.
And so I started to feel alittle bit behind, kind of like
you said, because I didn't do abig firm role until my 2L
(06:58):
summer.
But that's where I found BakerDonaldson.
And so I split my summer.
Again, back then, it was morecommon to do a shorter program
and split between two firms.
And so I was between two firmshere in town.
And Both have great health carepractices.
Both would have been a greatstart.
(07:18):
But what really drew me to Bakerwas, so I came to Baker through
our summer associate program,but I had also received our
diversity scholarship.
And so that really highlightedfor me some of the values and
the culture that I was lookingfor and some of that
collegiality that I was lookingfor.
And all of that has continued tobe reflective of my current.
(07:41):
work environment.
And so I was, I've been happywith the choice.
I always kind of say it was theeasiest.
Yes.
Aside from when I got married.
So
SPEAKER_05 (07:49):
don't regret either of those choices.
So that's great.
Caroline, what about you?
I feel like you had aninteresting path to your current
role at your firm.
I'd be curious to know sort ofhow did you end up, especially
as a Nashvilleian ended up inDC, which is also, of course, a
really great city forhealthcare, but looks a little
bit different from how Tanya andI ended up here in Nashville?
SPEAKER_00 (08:13):
Yeah, yeah.
So I kind of had to remainopen-minded.
When I went into law school, Iwas not dead set on a market
like, oh, I'm going to D.C.
and I am going to be singularlyfocused on D.C.
What really happened was COVID.
And that really disrupted allkinds of hiring processes.
(08:35):
The number of people that werehired, the timing of the hiring
process.
You could do things earlier.
They threw out all the rulesabout timing.
And so it was kind of just, itwas the wild, wild west in many
respects.
And so I kind of had to pivot,adapt, really take kind of
(08:56):
initiative in terms of talkingto a lot of different people
that I might not have actuallyactually considered doing if I
absent such a kind of disruptiveevent.
So as a result of that, I kindof expanded my geography.
And having gone to Notre Dame,that was definitely an
(09:16):
opportunity that was availableto me, given just the fantastic
network of people that are sowilling to help you.
Notre Dame's really good aboutthat.
So Chicago was still on thetable.
Atlanta, another southernmarket, was on the table.
Just where could I launch mycareer?
And so DC ended up being one ofthe most, viable options for me.
(09:42):
And so after having spoken witha lot of folks at the firm, I
felt like it had, it was goingto give me the opportunity to
kind of leverage my three-leggedstool of my undergrad being
international relations politicsand my law degree, obviously,
and then my MBA in finance andstrategy.
(10:04):
So I felt like that was going tojust, DC was a good place to be
able to leverage that.
The firm in particular withinhealthcare practice,
sophisticated, you know,corporate life sciences, all of
those types of things, thedifferent angles on healthcare
that you might not.
But I certainly was notnecessarily exposed to when I
was when I was growing up.
It was very hospital systemcentric.
(10:26):
It's very provider side centric,understandably.
But it did kind of broaden myperspective.
my just horizon, I guess, interms of what was actually
available in this broadercategory of healthcare, not just
healthcare provider side,healthcare, just all of the
different dimensions that can gointo it.
And so that was reallyattractive to me.
And so I was like, you know,what better place to be where
(10:49):
the action's happening.
SPEAKER_05 (10:52):
Absolutely.
And I want to get to both of yousharing about what your typical
day looks like for ourlisteners.
But before we get to that, Ithink both of you all have
touched on sort of the uniquefactors that impacted your
journey in being able to getyour role at the firm.
And we would obviously bemissing the elephant in the room
if we didn't mention COVID wassuch a huge shaping factor for
(11:12):
both of you.
Tania, you sort of becameinternet famous is maybe not the
right phrase, but a little bitas someone who took the bar
immediately while having a newboard, like shortly after,
because the bar kept gettingpushed back.
And so there was some challengespresented, obviously, with that.
I think maybe you even hadremote law school.
I'm not sure if I'm missing thetiming there, but Caroline, then
(11:35):
you sort of were impacted bysome of the recent changes as
well that have happened withhiring timelines and what that
all looks like.
And so for our listeners,obviously, thankfully, we're not
in the same exact setting, but Iwould say that for a lot of
folks, things have changed andthings are up in the air.
And some of these early careerfolks listening today might
(11:55):
really benefit from both ofy'all's wisdom on how to
navigate, how to have theresiliency that you're talking
about, Caroline, when you arefacing a job market that's
either unprecedented, your jobthat you thought you might have
might not exist anymore.
And how can you leverage yourskills that you do have to get
yourself in the door?
SPEAKER_00 (12:16):
Yeah.
So I would say, I mean, one,there's, like I said, I think
staying open-minded for one, um,because you can't plan out every
single aspect of your life oryour career.
Um, in fact, I'm still, even asa second year, I am still, you
know, I get, I get work that,that is another kind of wrinkle
on that.
(12:36):
I might want to add that to my,to my repertoire.
Um, I might not, I might belike, that's that, um, that
doesn't excite me or whatever,but I'm still, I'm still
adapting.
I'm still open-minded.
I'm still kind of keeping myeyes and ears open about just
opportunities that might beavailable, you know, down the
(12:56):
road or right now.
So I think, one, it's like, youknow, I mean, if you're very
committed, if you know yourself,you know yourself better than
anybody.
If you're like, you know, I'mgoing to, you know, Idaho Falls,
Idaho.
No questions asked.
Okay, go for it.
You know what I mean?
But I did think that in this, inwhen you face these types of
(13:18):
challenges, really, to kind ofbe willing to let it take you
where it takes you.
And you're capable of tacklingthat.
I mean, sure, the self-doubtwill creep in because the timing
doesn't happen the way youthought it was going to happen.
Like, I think I would imaginethat OCI, I mean, OCI was in my
(13:42):
year was...
you know, COVID fiasco, frankly.
I would imagine OCI, like, don'tbe discouraged if OCI is not
where you land your foreverhome.
That's a great opportunity, butI actually didn't get my
position through OCI.
And, you know, it was, again,just like not letting that, what
(14:03):
could be perceived as a setback,you know, that you just reach
out to folks.
That was one of the best adviceI can give.
in terms of getting a job, butalso once you get into the firm,
just establishing relationshipsand visibility with people that
it's trial and error a littlebit.
You're like, this person's greatto work with.
(14:24):
I like their work and that kindof thing.
And you only do that by reachingout to people and just picking
their brains.
And it's not like, it's not atransaction.
It's not, yeah, it's not like,oh, well, like you give me this
because I'm onlyself-interested.
It's truly just like kind ofthat initiative that, but you're
have to have kind of a certaindegree of confidence in yourself
(14:46):
like and that that i think weall have to remind ourselves of
frequently because we're all newto it.
I mean, I know that it seemslike I come into this with so
much experience and I got towitness, you know, an expert
navigate all of this.
But, you know, but in many ways,you know, I'm brand new to it.
(15:06):
My mom actually never worked ata firm.
So that's she interacted withfirms, obviously, you know,
extensively.
But that's not, you know, aguidance that she can give me
like from personal experience.
And so there's still all ofthat.
That's like, you know, you'reyou're You made it here for a
reason.
You should have some confidence.
Someone looked at you and sawyour potential and to kind of
(15:30):
own that.
Yeah, stay humble.
But also, you know, you gotyourself there with your hard
work and diligence andpersistence and things like
that.
So I think it's a lot of thosesoft, those kind of soft skills,
because.
The technical stuff of law isnot, like nobody expects you to
know all of the technical stuffwhen you walk in the door.
They just expect you to controlthese controllables, you know,
(15:51):
effort and attitude as it were.
SPEAKER_05 (15:54):
Yes, love that.
Tania, on resiliency and effortand attitude, I feel like you
embody that so well in yourjourney, not even before you
were a health lawyer, while youwere trying to get licensed.
SPEAKER_03 (16:06):
You
SPEAKER_02 (16:07):
had a lot happening.
Oh my gosh.
No, I honestly have to echoeverything Caroline just said
because Because I know aslawyers, we are risk averse and
we want to plan everything out Ato B and we want to account for
everything and you just can't dothat.
So yeah, I graduated law school2020.
(16:28):
I had it all planned out.
I was going to have my baby.
I was going to take the bar andthen have my baby, have some
time off.
And all of that went out thewindow.
I ended up taking the bar onlineat Baker Donaldson with a six
week old.
And it was a scary time becauseI know some people were like
losing their job offers or likeCaroline said, they might have
(16:49):
been getting, you know, pushedback, you And so it's really
just like Caroline said, yougotta stay open.
Anytime something like thiscomes your way, it's an
opportunity for you to shapewhat you want that narrative to
be.
And I could have said, oh, thisisn't gonna work.
It's gonna be too hard.
I just need to defer to the nextbar, blah, blah, blah.
(17:11):
But like Caroline said, we didhard work to get through
college, to law school, throughlaw school.
And so it's just a matter of,reminding yourself like, oh, I
can do hard things.
And this may be something Ihaven't faced before, but I do
have something to contribute andI can overcome things.
And so the more you do that aswell, you get more confident in
(17:35):
yourself that you can do itagain.
And so I, again, I just agreewith everything Caroline said.
And again, about shaping thatnarrative, like Allie said, it
was all over the internet that Itook the bar with the baby with
the benefit of a smart bassinet.
And now our firm is offeringthat bassinet as a parental
leave benefit.
(17:56):
And so I just kind of like usemy experiences to try to, you
know, help other people and getthem through a tough time.
And so, yeah, I love hearingabout, you know, other people
navigating some of this as well,because it just lets people know
you don't have to do a 1L summerand then repeat there.
(18:16):
So there are a lot of differentpathways to get to where we are.
And again, it's just up to youto kind of shape what your story
is going to look like.
So definitely just be proactiveand open.
But it is scary.
I will acknowledge that.
But...
SPEAKER_05 (18:32):
I appreciate both of you being so candid about your
experiences.
I remain convinced that yourgeneration is so gritty and so
resilient because precisely ofall these things that have
happened and all the things andall the changes that keep
happening in the world.
And so it's really exciting.
And I love that both of you arefolks who are taking those
experiences and helping mentorothers and change things for
others so that the next batch offolks who has to face those
(18:55):
challenges has it maybe a littlebit easier or at least has some
guidance to navigate it.
Okay, I think most folks who arelistening to this podcast
probably want to hear about whatdoes a typical day look like for
you as an early career associatein a large law firm focusing on
health law?
What is your day to day?
Is there a typical day?
Tania, do you want to kick usoff?
SPEAKER_02 (19:17):
Yeah, I will start this off.
For us, at least at Baker, ouryoung associates will typically
do kind of a mixed bag oftransactional and regulatory
work.
before they start to kind ofdeclare their major, as I call
it.
I'm someone that still does adecent mix of transactional and
(19:38):
regulatory work.
So I'll just use today as anexample.
I am running diligence on ahospital acquisition.
And so I'm interacting withdifferent, like Caroline said,
healthcare is a ton of things.
So I'm interacting withhealthcare regulatory partners,
benefits council, all thesedifferent people to pull
(20:00):
together diligence review forthis hospital deal And then I
have a niche area of my practicerelated to organ donation.
And so that's a really specificarea that I get to work on where
I might be, you know, navigatingdifferent regulatory issues that
they face or differentregulatory filings that they
have to do.
(20:22):
But my, so to answer yourquestion of whether there's a
typical day, there's not really.
My husband is a teacher.
And so he's like, okay, I gofrom period one to period two at
this time.
And he doesn't, gets verystressed about the fact that
I'll say, oh, someone justdropped a call on my calendar
for 30 minutes from now.
And he's like, how do you livethis way?
But I think part of thatspontaneous aspect is what keeps
(20:48):
this interesting and on yourtoes.
Again, the law is alwayschanging.
Clients will change the facts.
And so some of that adaptabilitythat we've been talking about in
life is applicable to our workas well.
I'm on a couple of mergers wherethey have just changed what
they're trying to do like threetimes.
(21:08):
And I'm like, okay, so before Isend you like, okay, before I
send you the agreement for athird time, please confirm this
is what we're doing and thatthis is the timeline we're
working with.
And so again, it's just a lot ofdifferent things like that, but
I do appreciate that healthcareis still very broad.
(21:28):
So even if you've kind ofnarrowed down an industry
there's still so much out therethat you can get your hands on.
And at Baker, we definitely havethat wide open for associates to
dip their hands in.
In our corporate group as well,again, being in Nashville, they
all touch healthcare deals everyday as well.
(21:50):
So even if you're someone thatmaybe doesn't wanna focus
specifically on healthcare andyou wanna do corporate, there's
still a benefit to getting somebackground and some insight into
different industries, such ashealthcare, just so you
understand clients' businesswhen doing deals or something
for them.
So yeah, lots of differentthings might happen in a day for
(22:12):
me, but lots of calls, lots ofreviewing contracts, lots of
drafting policies, just a lot ofdifferent things.
SPEAKER_05 (22:22):
Yeah, I love it.
Caroline, what about you?
What does your day look like asa second year student?
SPEAKER_00 (22:27):
I can concur that there's the cliche that there is
not like a standard day.
So similar to how Baker does it.
I mean, I would say GT isparticularly entrepreneurial.
You can kind of craft apractice, even as a second year,
(22:49):
that is pretty your own.
I mean, you're always going todo stuff that comes across your
desk, not that you sought, perse.
But you can start to reallycraft that.
And so as of today, I'm workingon– so I actually do sit quite–
do a lot of pure corporate workin addition to– it's corporate
(23:14):
work.
it's corporate in the sense thatit's actually some security
stuff, some governance stuff,things like that, that are to
serve healthcare clients, butalso more of that hybrid
regulatory transactional, likethat Tania mentioned, noted um
(23:36):
and so like as of today i'm onseveral deals um that are
distressed transactions um whichagain speaks to the diversity
that you can do in your in ahealthcare practice um because
there are i mean the margins ona lot of these a lot of these
health care providers are notnecessarily that gargantuan
they're you know they are nomargin no mission but still um
(23:59):
you know and so they are they'rethey're they struggle some of
these so i um have been workingon several transactions that are
out of foreclosure, where theybundle these properties, these
assisted living facilities,independent living facilities,
et cetera, and sell themtogether when the previous
(24:22):
operators weren't able tooperate them in a way that was
profitable.
So I've been working on thosedeals, which includes just
drafting those agreements,corresponding with the client in
on those, trying to make surethat all the legal descriptions
are tracked down, like all ofthat kind of stuff, because
(24:42):
they're kind of combined realestate and operations sales.
And then switch gears todrafting a consent for a simple
agreement for future equity,which is a lot of these life
sciences clients, especiallywhen they're first getting
started, it's very expensive,they need money.
(25:05):
And so they go and get thesefrom investors.
And so it's a lot of that kindof governance work that's very
detail-oriented have to go backand read those bylaws that
everybody learned about back atthe very beginning of law
school, those types of things.
So yeah, and then obviously justemails and calls and trying to
(25:28):
field all of those types ofthings in terms of, and I do
have to sometimes find a littletime to block off undistracted
time for that.
But yeah, there's not really fordrafting and just the deep
thinking, but yeah, so there'snot really a, a standard day,
but that's actually part of thething that's so attractive about
(25:51):
working in a practice that'smore of an industry focus,
unlike something that might be,I know everything about this
particular statute and I willlitigate the heck out of it for
the rest of my career.
But you have this diversity oflike, if you wanna do distressed
transactions, there'sopportunity for that.
If you wanna do life sciences,early stage investing, you can
(26:14):
do some of that.
If you want to do, you know,provider side deals, you can do
provider side deals.
If you want to do, dig reallydeep into reimbursement
regulatory, you can do that.
SPEAKER_05 (26:24):
There really is a lot of breadth to it.
And I think the large firms, youknow, I think that that is maybe
the best thing or one of thebest things of being at a large
firm, especially, you know, bothof y'all are in practices that
have very robust healthcareofferings.
And so you really do get to dipyour toes on, you know, into
everything And I think that thatis something that really serves
(26:47):
early career folks really well.
And to your point, Caroline, Ithink it, People are surprised
when large firm lawyers mentionthe entrepreneurial nature of a
lot of our practices.
But I would say that becausethere is such a breadth and
depth to everything that'savailable at the firm, you kind
of get to decide, you know,right, you're an adventurer and
(27:08):
really explore and develop thoseniches as you're interested,
which I think makes it a reallyfun and dynamic practice.
I don't know if we always thinkit's fun, but I think overall it
comes out in the wash assomething that's really fun and
interesting.
So obviously, this is anAHLA-sponsored podcast, so we'd
be remiss to not chat about howyou guys got involved with AHLA,
(27:31):
what it has meant for yourcareer, some highlights that you
might have had.
I know both of you have attendeddifferent conferences at AHLA
and educational programs thatAHLA has hosted, so I would love
to learn a little bit more aboutwhy y'all chose to get involved
and what that's looked like foryou.
Antonia, you can kick us off.
SPEAKER_02 (27:50):
Yeah, I can jump in.
If I'm not mistaken, I mighthave even started following AHLA
as a law student.
I believe that.
Yeah.
And I like so I transactions isone of the conferences that is
typically in Nashville.
And so it's very accessible tome and very encouraged by our
firm that we participate.
(28:10):
But it's always just such goodcontent.
AHLA has really good resources.
And similar to the podcast we'redoing now, there are
opportunities for young lawyersto start to build a name for
themselves.
So I've done a couple articleswith AHLA that have just kind of
helped me get some experience onmarketing and business
(28:30):
development.
But even on a substantive note,the resources have just been
really helpful over the years.
So even when I'm not able to getto some of the conferences, we
will have one of our associateskind of report out and share
documents or PowerPoints thatwere spoken on at the
conference.
But So there's all of that.
(28:51):
There's great substantiveresources, great opportunities
for young lawyers.
And it's also a really good wayto meet other people.
I know there are people I met atmy very first transactions
conference that I still keep intouch with now.
And I think that's really cool.
And you look forward to seeingeach other every time and just
start to build that community,which was something that has
(29:13):
been a priority for me everprimarily because my first year
was all remote everything.
I've been really trying to takeadvantage of things where I can
to get out there and travel somejust because I didn't have that
opportunity that first yearbecause of COVID.
And so I don't know if otherpeople, my years sort of feel a
little behind, but to the extentI can get in there and go to
(29:39):
some more AHLA events, that'sdefinitely something high on my
radar.
And also that the firmdefinitely supports Just because
it's always great content, greatcommunity, and things like that.
So that's my two cents.
But yeah, AHLA has just beeningrained in my workflow from
the very beginning.
It was like a never questionthat I would get involved with
(30:03):
it.
I'm just happy to continue doingthings like this and finding
different ways to, because likewe said, the firm is Choose Your
Own Adventure.
AHLA is also Choose Your OwnAdventure.
So you can go to differentconferences.
You can write, you can speak,you can, there's all these
different things that you cankind of get plugged in.
SPEAKER_05 (30:21):
Caroline, how did you?
I agree with that.
SPEAKER_00 (30:25):
There's all of the above, you know, retweet.
So, yeah, I actually gotinvolved in HLA in law school.
I met a fellow Notre Dame grad,Rob Gurberry, and he and now and
now we have like a little NotreDame reunion at all the
(30:45):
different HLA conferences.
So I always I mean, I'm alwaysprioritize the AHLA Transactions
Conference, especially.
Selfishly, it's also a way forme to get
SPEAKER_04 (30:58):
open.
SPEAKER_00 (31:01):
But it is a great, it's a great conference and it's
timely.
And they always have, you know,like I think two years ago, like
the emphasis of just the macroenvironment was a lot of baby
HSRs.
And this year with the differentkind of regime change or
whatever, it's a lot of likeantitrust.
So it's very, it was verytimely, you know, and you get,
(31:23):
and you get, and it's a range.
It's not just, if you are youngand all of this and not as
fluent in the language, as itwere.
then there's something for you.
If you have something that's...
Like my mom, we went to thisconference together.
Well, not together, but we did,you know, and she has...
We hung out at the conference.
(31:43):
And she gets to see, you know,things that are really timely
for her who is beyond fluent inthe language.
And I am still, you know,learning a lot of this stuff and
some of the more sophisticatedstructures and things like that,
that she's going to go and seethat.
But if you, or if you'resomewhere in between, there's
something you can take out ofall of these speakers.
(32:04):
They're so knowledgeable.
It's a great way to get to knowpeople and reconnect with
people.
I mean, I reconnected with Aliat this conference.
But also, you just meet newpeople that are, you know, I
mean, the last conference I gotinvited to like a little dinner
just like on a whim from one ofthe booth people because we got
to talking and it was like twodegrees of separation of how we
(32:27):
knew, you name it.
And so that kind of organicstuff that just takes place.
And so I really encouragepeople, if you have any interest
in health care law, in whatevercapacity, to just explore AHLA
early in your law school careeror any time thereafter.
(32:49):
Because the resources arefantastic.
The publications are fantastic.
They're very useful.
I mean, when I first started,one of the things that a fellow
health care associate whostarted in regulatory and
transitioned to transactional,but he really liked that.
He was like, I really got acommand of the regulatory before
I moved into the transactional.
(33:10):
And one of the things that herecommended, he was like, take
that fundamentals book and readit.
He said, because nobody's doingthat.
Nobody's reading that cover tocover as just like an
introduction to this.
And one, you get so muchinformation.
And two, you get to sort oflike, what of this stuff is
(33:35):
interesting to you?
And so I would relay that to anew person that might be
interested in it, is one, justplug into it and just like, by
osmosis, kind of find yourpeople, find your, the resources
that are helpful for you.
And then, I mean, if you reallyare like, just completely not,
don't know if healthcare is foryou, I don't know if you want to
(33:56):
read the
SPEAKER_06 (33:57):
fundamentals,
SPEAKER_00 (33:59):
but if you're, you know, if you're early on and
you're like, you know, I thinkthis is, this intrigues me.
I think I want to, then, then Iwould, I would take that as
well, because it is, it is a wayto kind of just quickly absorb
information and are really,really, and it's, and it's
updated and they're, and they'rereally good information.
I mean, also you can just readit as you come across issues.
That's another way to do it.
Like, I know they have likevarious surveys and, you know,
(34:24):
you just like when you'reworking on something and it's a
specific question, you tend tolike just be so zeroed in on
that.
It's like, oh, maybe just read alittle bit more.
paragraph before, paragraphafter, or this whole section in
this, you know, the Californiacorporate practice in medicine,
you know, or
SPEAKER_04 (34:42):
whatever section.
All of us live by that 50 statecorporate practice of medicine.
It's a popular one.
I
SPEAKER_03 (34:48):
would be disbarred without that book.
I would not make it without thatbook.
SPEAKER_05 (34:54):
I'm looking over here directly in my line of
sight.
I have all those and I will makea plug for it.
There is the AHI Fundamentals ofHealth Law book, which back in
my day, that one did not exist.
So now it's a handy book insteadof sort of the fundamentals
binder, though I still print outthe fundamentals binder anytime
I get to attend fundamentals.
But Fundamentals of Health Lawfor our listeners is a
(35:15):
conference that we have thatreally is geared more towards
the early career folks.
And it's kind of what it soundslike.
You go and you get an intro toall all things healthcare, but I
have gone even as, you know, aslightly more seasoned lawyer
and I still learn a lot ofthings.
It's so helpful.
And then transactions, which youboth mentioned is a really
popular one.
It's here in Nashville and folkswho do transactional work for
(35:38):
healthcare clients gather andthe content is so good.
I feel like everyone was at thetax training during this last
conference, but HLA also has anacronym book.
And I know we did a podcastepisode with the author and that
is kind of what it sounds like.
It demystifies the alphabet soupof health law acronyms, which we
(35:59):
love our acronyms.
(36:23):
of this episode where we shareabout what it's like to be at a
law firm, at a large law firm,one of the great things is just
access to those resources.
So I'd be shocked if we don'tall have the same sort of core
library accessible to us of allthose AHLA products.
And oftentimes, if for somereason your firm doesn't have
one, you can order it and it'ssomething that the firm wants to
(36:46):
get for you.
So we would encourage you, ifyou are a listener who is at a
large law firm, please don'thesitate to ask for those AHLA
resources.
They're so great.
And chances are that yourlibrary probably actually has
them available for you.
Okay.
The other thing that we get alot of questions about on Law
Firm Life is firm culture andwork-life balance, which I think
(37:09):
that some folks who have notexperienced Law Firm Life can be
a little bit spooked by sort ofthis thought of, you know, big
firm, lots of people.
What have your experiences beenlike working at large law firms?
And what do you think reallyfolks, what would you encourage
folks to look for as far as likefinding I think for me, like you
(37:30):
said,
SPEAKER_02 (37:46):
you know, challenging healthcare practice
was kind of a given for all theNashville firms.
And so I had to look beyondthat.
And I had just recently gottenmarried when I was doing my
summer associate positions.
And so I was kind of thinkingthrough, okay, is this a firm
that has a lot of parents?
And particularly in ourhealthcare group, I wanted to
(38:07):
know, like, are there a lot ofparents in this group?
Like, is it possible andfeasible to, you you know, to do
this work and have a family.
And also just looking at whatdoes the firm kind of offer to
support parents?
Like, for example, we offer likebreast milk shipping if I have
to travel for work and we havelike emergency childcare
(38:31):
reimbursement and differentthings like that that just make
it possible to be able to have afamily and still do this work.
Something to also be askingabout and thinking about are
billable outlays.
requirements some firms are notas strict about it some are like
you have to hit this number sothose are just some things you
(38:51):
want to think about because thatwill kind of shape you know the
culture and how things operatefor me it it took me a little
bit of time to like get my headaround okay I need to do x
number of hours but what doesthat break down to per month per
week per day thinking becausethis is a very unique job in the
sense that I could be at workyou know, all day, I might be
(39:13):
there eight hours and five ofthose were billable or four of
those were billable.
And so I'm like, well, I dideverything you told me to do,
but my hours are bad.
It's like, so it's verychallenging to like get over
that hump because it took me awhile to be like, well, I'm
doing everything they said andI'm going to the meetings and
I'm writing the articles, butyou still have to do the
(39:36):
billable hours.
So just kind of thinking throughWhat does that look like?
And I have found that it's veryhelpful to plan out those days
that I know are going to be atwo-hour, three-hour billable
day.
Or even if I have vacation, goahead and just write a zero for
that week and calculate aroundit.
(39:57):
because you're not going to justfall into the goal accidentally.
Yeah, you're not going to fallinto it.
And you don't want to be like mepretty much a couple of years in
a row where I'm at the end ofthe fiscal year scrambling to
fit it all in.
So my recommendation isdefinitely to ask some of those
questions about what therequirements are.
(40:18):
I know we also have anon-billable expectation.
And so doing things like this isencouraged and monitored.
you know, just getting a sensefor the firm's priorities and
making sure they align with yourown because you're, the firms
are interviewing you, but you'realso interviewing them.
And so you have choices and wantto have choices about where to
(40:38):
go.
And so looking for some of thosequestions, I also asked a little
bit about what programs do youoffer for minorities and women?
And just some of those thingsjust really shape what the
environment is like.
If I ask someone, this may be awhite man, and if he can't tell
me anything about the firm'swomen's initiative, then or
(41:00):
diversity efforts, then that ismaybe a sign that it's not a
firm-wide priority.
And so just asking some of thosequestions in a tactful way can
get you some answers.
When was your last vacation?
What was the last movie you saw?
Different things like that.
Exactly, exactly.
If they have no answers, redflag.
(41:24):
Red flag, I don't like it.
So a lot of that, and I havebeen happy that you know, I was
not in any sort of bait andswitch.
So I was happy to find that tothe extent you can, Baker is a
really good environment forwork-life balance.
But again, I have kids.
And so that is often out thewindow at my own place.
(41:45):
But anyway,
SPEAKER_05 (41:48):
yeah.
No, I totally get what you mean.
Caroline, how about you?
What would you say to folks whomight be a little spooked by the
prospect of joining a large lawfirm?
How can you...
how both that firm culture, butalso how can you manage that
work-life balance from the earlydays?
I feel like you're probably inthe thick of establishing what
that looks like for you as ayounger associate.
SPEAKER_00 (42:09):
Yeah, it's definitely one of those things
that you kind of have to, atleast once you start.
So the evaluative process of thefirm itself, of course, it's
important to understand billablehour requirements and
understanding that there'ssometimes there's unspoken
billable hour requirements atcertain firms.
And to see kind of what's thetone about transparency, that's
(42:33):
one of the ways.
And that might not be in yourinterview, but you could just
talk to people.
Yeah, people from your undergrador law school that had landed
there or people that youotherwise know that might give
you sort of some candidinformation about what it's like
there That's not just a salespitch, like the bait and switch
(42:57):
part, because that is somethingto kind of keep your eyes and
ears open for.
I know there's a tendency to belike, oh, just like the
desperation of getting a job,you know, which I feel like in
this environment is very real.
I mean, like COVID was real.
That was very real.
But also keep your, you know,you know your values and like
(43:19):
look and see, I mean, the bestthing that you can probably do
is just really have some, to theextent you have, you know, over
the last few years, establishlike some sense of clarity
around what your values are.
You know, that's kind of lookfor those and look for proxies
for those values.
Like I went to a happy hourafter work with a new
(43:42):
prospective, like internalclient, like he, you know, he
might, he has some, work,corporate work, things like
that, where he might, and it'sjust like a very candid, you
know, normal conversation.
We're not talking too much aboutwork.
It's not, it's, you know, we'reboth evaluating each other a
little bit, you know.
And, you know, but you justlisten for that, you know,
(44:04):
listen for the values, theproxies for values.
Like, you know, he was talkingabout how he, he was like a
seventh year associate at avery, very large, prominent, you
know, like white shoe law firm.
And he was like, my wife, I wasin the grocery store and she
hadn't seen me for a week andshe was, you know, trying to
(44:29):
juggle all these children and hehas to take a call because he's
on, he's on a deal and she'd hadenough, you know?
Um, and he said, you know, justin passing, he was like, well,
my family is more important thanmy job.
So I decided to figure out whatwas a better fit, you know, and
he, and he, and he foundsomething that worked for him.
Um, But it's those kind ofsubtle, just in passing type of
(44:52):
things that people say when youget to know them to determine if
this is one, the right firm foryou, but also is this person the
right person to work with?
Because one of the advice that Igot when I was in high school,
actually, that I think istransferable to this environment
is, and it was actually tochoose a small school versus a
(45:13):
large school.
And the advice was, you can makea big school small, but you
can't make a small school big.
And I think that, and I didn'tgrasp all of that, the meaning
of all of that when I was, youknow, 17, you know, whatever.
But even at a large law firm,you know, there's also like,
what team are you going to beworking on?
(45:35):
Who are those people?
Because they will influence yourlife and your career trajectory,
certainly, but your life in themeantime, a lot more than some,
you know, the collective 3000people or whatever that are
involved, however large your lawfirm is.
And so it's important to, yes,understand those kind of the
(45:58):
top-down pressures from theadministration, but also what's
the composition of this team.
And when you look up the chain,do these people have a life that
you think is something that youwould want to model your life in
part off of, you might, I mean,it won't be a hundred percent,
but you know, but is that, whenyou look up the chain, is that
something that you would wantfor yourself?
(46:18):
Because you do kind ofeventually start to establish
like your cadence kind of alignswith their cadence and that kind
of thing.
And so if that's not, if there'snot an alignment, if they have a
life that you're like on paper,that looks really great, but it
just doesn't really align withmy, with my life, you know, with
my, with my, um, with my valuesthat I've established or
(46:41):
whatever, then I think that'sreally important.
But it starts with some degreeof clarity on what those values
are for you to listen to whatthose proxies for those values
are.
Because you often cannot just,you know, you can't be that
forward about it.
You can be bold.
(47:02):
I encourage people
SPEAKER_05 (47:03):
to be bold.
But you might not get theanswer.
You might not get an honestanswer.
So I do think that yoursuggestion of proxies, which I
think Danielle also sort ofspoke of.
Yes.
Okay.
Well, as we start to wrap upyour time, I would love to know
if you you guys could go backand tell your undergrad selves
(47:24):
one piece of advice.
It doesn't necessarily have tobe around health law, but just
generally think about where youare today.
If you could go back to them andlet them know that things worked
out well and to keep one pieceof advice in mind, what would
you guys say to yourselves?
Tania, do you want to kick usoff?
SPEAKER_02 (47:43):
I think it would have to kind of go back to
something we said earlier, whichwas like, don't get too caught
up in your ABCD plan, havingthose values, like Caroline
said, can guide kind of whereyou're headed.
And that being said, it's okayif it doesn't look exactly how
you thought it would look.
(48:04):
I did not expect to take the barin a room by myself at a firm.
I did not expect to have myoffer delayed by a few months.
All these different things werenot how I envisioned them.
I also didn't even envisionbeing a lawyer at first.
And so just kind of trustingthat those values and the hard
(48:25):
work that we put in will kind ofget you where you need to be
because otherwise you'll stressyourself out getting hung up on
timing and expectations anddifferent things like that that
that don't have to be the focusthe focus is um the success that
you're you're crafting foryourself every day um and that
(48:46):
that's definitely something thatI I have struggled with and
struggle with still so I'mtalking to myself as much as
anyone um but yeah just stayingflexible like we said at the
beginning um will will make youcomfortable with where you are
and where you're headed
SPEAKER_05 (49:02):
I love that, thank you.
Caroline, what would you tellundergrad Caroline
SPEAKER_00 (49:07):
I think I would pose a question to Caroline.
I think it would be, yeah, Iwould say, because I think one
of the biggest things that I,that is like speaking to the
values earlier, is really kindof listening to yourself.
Because this profession and, youknow, in law school and all
(49:30):
these things, there's a trackand you think you have to follow
it.
And there's a lot of noise.
People tell you that you have todo this if you want to get to
here.
You have to do, you have to do,you have to do.
But you can't discern which onesof those are for you and which
ones are not for you if youdon't really kind of have a core
(49:50):
understanding of what you wantand that type of thing, and not
making decisions purely off offear.
And so I think that's critical.
And so the question that I wouldask myself probably, or the
first thing that comes to mindis, you know, what would you do
if you knew it was all going tobe okay?
SPEAKER_04 (50:09):
I love that.
I feel like we all need to hearthat today.
SPEAKER_00 (50:13):
Because it frees you up to really kind of be bold
where you should be bold andmake those decisions that align
your life with what you want itto be.
And that's a very individualexercise.
Unfortunately, I can't get onhere and be like, this is what
everybody should do becauseeverybody's values are
different.
Their priors are different.
(50:35):
They come to the table withdifferent things, hopes, dreams,
fears, et cetera.
But that's That's what I wouldask myself.
And I think that also alignswell with what Tenia was saying.
It provides you with additionalflexibility.
There's no one prescribedsuccessful path in this, in
health law, in law generally.
(50:55):
If you get on a track and you'relike, this is not the track for
me, get off the track.
Even if some, even if all thesepeople that are at high up and
they're telling you, you know,this is catastrophic.
This is, you have to do it thisway because this is how we did
it 20 years ago.
And there's a track and you haveto follow it.
If you don't like the track, getoff the track.
(51:18):
You know, but you can't youcan't make those kind of you
can't have that kind of wisdom,really, if you haven't really
done that kind of just you andyour thoughts inside in your in
your home, you know, without thenoise of outside influence all
the time.
SPEAKER_05 (51:33):
Asking yourself that question is very healthy.
Well, how can listeners connectwith you guys or learn more
about your work?
SPEAKER_02 (51:42):
Go for it.
I mean, I'm on LinkedIn.
You can find me usually likingAllie's post.
So if you just look at her,
SPEAKER_06 (51:50):
look
SPEAKER_02 (51:51):
at her recents and you'll find me, Tania Clayton,
on LinkedIn.
I like to share kind of whereI'm headed and what I'm up to on
there, including conferenceslike transactions.
SPEAKER_05 (52:02):
Yeah.
And Caroline, I feel likesimilarly with you, I assume.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_02 (52:07):
well.
SPEAKER_00 (52:08):
Likewise, you can find me on LinkedIn.
I'm Caroline K.
Abbott.
And, you know, and obviously onthe firm website, you can look
me up if you wish.
SPEAKER_06 (52:19):
You're going the formal route,
SPEAKER_00 (52:22):
but always available and accessible on LinkedIn.
Likewise, you know, interactingwith...
We've interacted with like andAli's posts, all the LinkedIn
influencers these days, legalinfluencers.
So yeah, you can find me onLinkedIn.
SPEAKER_05 (52:38):
It's a good community out there.
Well, thank you so much to youand Caroline for sharing your
stories and your wisdom with ourlisteners today.
And thank you to our listenersfor tuning in today.
If you're an early career healthprofessional, we'd love to
connect with you and share moreabout the volunteer and
networking opportunities thatare available to early career
professionals through AHLA.
We'll see you all next time.
SPEAKER_01 (53:01):
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to
AHLA's Speaking of Health Lawwherever you get your podcasts.
For more information about AHLAand the educational resources
available to the health lawcommunity, visit
AmericanHealthLaw.org.
And stay updated on breakinghealthcare industry news from
the major media outlets withAHLA's Health Law Daily Podcast,
(53:22):
exclusively for AHLA Premiummembers.
To subscribe and add thisprivate podcast feed to your
podcast app, go toAmericanHealthLaw.org slash
Daily Podcast.
you
This episode of AHLA's Speaking of Health Law is
brought to you by AHLA membersand donors like you.
For more information, visitamericanhealthlaw.org.
SPEAKER_05 (00:17):
Welcome to today's episode of Speaking of Health
Law brought to you by theAmerican Health Law Association
and the Early CareerProfessionals Council.
The Early Career ProfessionalsCouncil is a forum for the
discussion of issues pertainingto early career professionals
and students in the healthcareand health law world.
I'm Allie Dalton and I'm yourhost for today.
I'm a partner at Bradley where Iget to help clients navigate
(00:38):
deals and day-to-day operationsin a highly regulated industry.
I also have the privilege ofserving as the chair of the
Early Career ProfessionalsCouncil.
Today, Today's episode is allabout the life of healthcare
associates at large firms.
Our guests for today are TaniaClayton, who's an associate at
Baker Donaldson, and CarolineAbbott, who's an associate at
(00:58):
Greenberg Torgue.
We hope this conversation willhelp showcase the opportunities
available to law firm associatesand early career professionals
who might be interested inbecoming law firm associates and
focusing on healthcare law andwhat life looks like in this
role.
Please note that the viewsexpressed today are our own and
not that of our employers.
So without further delay,welcome to the podcast, y'all.
(01:22):
Hi, thanks for the welcome.
SPEAKER_00 (01:23):
Yeah, thank you for having us.
SPEAKER_05 (01:25):
Okay, to start, Caroline, could you share a
little bit about your journeyinto health law and what drew
you into this area of practice?
I think you have a little bit ofa unique fun fact about yourself
that I think our listeners mightfind very interesting.
SPEAKER_00 (01:39):
Yeah, yeah, happy to.
Yeah, so I grew up in Nashville.
I am currently based inWashington, D.C., but as a
result of that, I very much grewup in the healthcare space.
My mom is, and it was a generalcounsel, chief legal officer
in-house at several differenthospital systems and provider
(02:02):
organizations, and I very muchgrew up, you know, under her
deaths, quite literally, with mycolored pencils and goldfish.
And so I really had kind of anexposure to this kind of law
from a very early age, that thatwas an option, that it's not
(02:24):
just litigation and corporateexclusively in those big
categories.
And the rest of my family islikewise in health care in some
capacity.
My dad was a nurse, and mygrandmother you know, the lead
at the radiology tech of one ofthe more prominent physician
practices in Nashville.
So I had that kind of exposurevery early on, but I also had
(02:48):
exposure not just to the factthat you could do health law,
but that there was just such arange of what you could do in
health law.
Like you can do corporate, youcan do labor and employment, you
can, I mean, just all of theserange of things that it wasn't
just these kind of really,really high level categories
that you that you could take apath on.
SPEAKER_05 (03:08):
That's great.
Thank you.
I love that fun fact about yourmom.
And I had a chance to meet herat the HLA Transactions
Conference earlier this year.
And it was really great to seeboth of y'all practicing and
doing your thing.
Tania, could you share a littlebit about your journey into
health law and what drew you tothis area of practice?
I think something that ourguests might find or our
(03:30):
listeners might find interestingis that you sort of went in with
that focus and got a chance toreally focus your law school
classes on health law.
So we'd love to hear a littlebit more about that
SPEAKER_02 (03:40):
yeah um I think my my story is similar to
Caroline's in that I maybe gotsome exposure to health law
sooner than others but it'sdifferent from hers which I also
love because we're kind ofhighlighting the different paths
that people can take and I soI'm a first generation law
student um currently a fifthyear associate in Baker
Donaldson's health law practicegroup um also from Nashville so
(04:00):
that's another fun fact aboutthis group um But anyway, I
spent my entire childhood sayingthat I was going to be an
anesthesiologist specifically.
I don't know why.
I think I just thought that, youknow, it was an important job
and would set me up for the kindof lifestyle that I wanted.
But it turns out I hate science.
So my pre-med dreams quicklywent out the window.
(04:22):
But I did my undergrad at EmoryUniversity.
And, you know, Emory isbasically right down the street
from the CDC.
And so it has a very heavypublic health policy.
presence in Atlanta.
And so I changed my major tohuman health.
And so that's where I started toget an interest in more of like
a health care policy and a legalstandpoint.
(04:45):
And then from there, justwanting to move back home to
Nashville, Belmont actually hasa health law certificate
program.
So I was able to kind of earlyon get some exposure to fraud
and abuse, corporate issues.
We have a health caretransactions moot court team
that I participated in.
And I think all of that reallyhelped set me up for this career
(05:07):
in health law.
And again, just being inNashville with it being such a
heavy healthcare town, it allkind of just fit into place that
way.
So I love that our stories are alittle bit different, but I
think Caroline and I also cameto health law a little bit
sooner than maybe some othersmay have.
SPEAKER_05 (05:24):
Yes.
And if you are someone who'slistening and feeling like, oh
my goodness, am I behind becausemy mom or my parent is not a
health law lawyer, or I didn'tgo to a law school or didn't
study or major in anythingrelated to health, just know
that I'm proof that you candefinitely do it while at a law
firm, not really knowinganything about health law,
(05:46):
similar to y'all, I'm based outof Nashville.
And so as a summer associatehere, it was impossible to miss
the presence of healthcare as anindustry and a potential
opportunity as a rising or anaspiring lawyer.
And so that's sort of how I fellinto it.
Certainly wish I would have hadmore access to health law
classes and all the fancy thingsthat I feel like law students
(06:07):
have now.
Though my law school offers acertificate now as well.
And so it's really cool to seehow it's developed into this
practice area that a lot offolks know about early on as
they start their careers Tania,could you share a little bit
more about how you got your jobat your firm and any experiences
(06:28):
that helped shape your careerdirection?
You touched a little bit on thatwhile being at Emory and that
access to the CDC, but how didyou get to where you are today?
SPEAKER_02 (06:37):
Yeah, so back in my day, it was not as common in
Nashville to have 1L summerassociates.
And so I started to feel alittle bit behind, kind of like
you said, because I didn't do abig firm role until my 2L
(06:58):
summer.
But that's where I found BakerDonaldson.
And so I split my summer.
Again, back then, it was morecommon to do a shorter program
and split between two firms.
And so I was between two firmshere in town.
And Both have great health carepractices.
Both would have been a greatstart.
(07:18):
But what really drew me to Bakerwas, so I came to Baker through
our summer associate program,but I had also received our
diversity scholarship.
And so that really highlightedfor me some of the values and
the culture that I was lookingfor and some of that
collegiality that I was lookingfor.
And all of that has continued tobe reflective of my current.
(07:41):
work environment.
And so I was, I've been happywith the choice.
I always kind of say it was theeasiest.
Yes.
Aside from when I got married.
So
SPEAKER_05 (07:49):
don't regret either of those choices.
So that's great.
Caroline, what about you?
I feel like you had aninteresting path to your current
role at your firm.
I'd be curious to know sort ofhow did you end up, especially
as a Nashvilleian ended up inDC, which is also, of course, a
really great city forhealthcare, but looks a little
bit different from how Tanya andI ended up here in Nashville?
SPEAKER_00 (08:13):
Yeah, yeah.
So I kind of had to remainopen-minded.
When I went into law school, Iwas not dead set on a market
like, oh, I'm going to D.C.
and I am going to be singularlyfocused on D.C.
What really happened was COVID.
And that really disrupted allkinds of hiring processes.
(08:35):
The number of people that werehired, the timing of the hiring
process.
You could do things earlier.
They threw out all the rulesabout timing.
And so it was kind of just, itwas the wild, wild west in many
respects.
And so I kind of had to pivot,adapt, really take kind of
(08:56):
initiative in terms of talkingto a lot of different people
that I might not have actuallyactually considered doing if I
absent such a kind of disruptiveevent.
So as a result of that, I kindof expanded my geography.
And having gone to Notre Dame,that was definitely an
(09:16):
opportunity that was availableto me, given just the fantastic
network of people that are sowilling to help you.
Notre Dame's really good aboutthat.
So Chicago was still on thetable.
Atlanta, another southernmarket, was on the table.
Just where could I launch mycareer?
And so DC ended up being one ofthe most, viable options for me.
(09:42):
And so after having spoken witha lot of folks at the firm, I
felt like it had, it was goingto give me the opportunity to
kind of leverage my three-leggedstool of my undergrad being
international relations politicsand my law degree, obviously,
and then my MBA in finance andstrategy.
(10:04):
So I felt like that was going tojust, DC was a good place to be
able to leverage that.
The firm in particular withinhealthcare practice,
sophisticated, you know,corporate life sciences, all of
those types of things, thedifferent angles on healthcare
that you might not.
But I certainly was notnecessarily exposed to when I
was when I was growing up.
It was very hospital systemcentric.
(10:26):
It's very provider side centric,understandably.
But it did kind of broaden myperspective.
my just horizon, I guess, interms of what was actually
available in this broadercategory of healthcare, not just
healthcare provider side,healthcare, just all of the
different dimensions that can gointo it.
And so that was reallyattractive to me.
And so I was like, you know,what better place to be where
(10:49):
the action's happening.
SPEAKER_05 (10:52):
Absolutely.
And I want to get to both of yousharing about what your typical
day looks like for ourlisteners.
But before we get to that, Ithink both of you all have
touched on sort of the uniquefactors that impacted your
journey in being able to getyour role at the firm.
And we would obviously bemissing the elephant in the room
if we didn't mention COVID wassuch a huge shaping factor for
(11:12):
both of you.
Tania, you sort of becameinternet famous is maybe not the
right phrase, but a little bitas someone who took the bar
immediately while having a newboard, like shortly after,
because the bar kept gettingpushed back.
And so there was some challengespresented, obviously, with that.
I think maybe you even hadremote law school.
I'm not sure if I'm missing thetiming there, but Caroline, then
(11:35):
you sort of were impacted bysome of the recent changes as
well that have happened withhiring timelines and what that
all looks like.
And so for our listeners,obviously, thankfully, we're not
in the same exact setting, but Iwould say that for a lot of
folks, things have changed andthings are up in the air.
And some of these early careerfolks listening today might
(11:55):
really benefit from both ofy'all's wisdom on how to
navigate, how to have theresiliency that you're talking
about, Caroline, when you arefacing a job market that's
either unprecedented, your jobthat you thought you might have
might not exist anymore.
And how can you leverage yourskills that you do have to get
yourself in the door?
SPEAKER_00 (12:16):
Yeah.
So I would say, I mean, one,there's, like I said, I think
staying open-minded for one, um,because you can't plan out every
single aspect of your life oryour career.
Um, in fact, I'm still, even asa second year, I am still, you
know, I get, I get work that,that is another kind of wrinkle
on that.
(12:36):
I might want to add that to my,to my repertoire.
Um, I might not, I might belike, that's that, um, that
doesn't excite me or whatever,but I'm still, I'm still
adapting.
I'm still open-minded.
I'm still kind of keeping myeyes and ears open about just
opportunities that might beavailable, you know, down the
(12:56):
road or right now.
So I think, one, it's like, youknow, I mean, if you're very
committed, if you know yourself,you know yourself better than
anybody.
If you're like, you know, I'mgoing to, you know, Idaho Falls,
Idaho.
No questions asked.
Okay, go for it.
You know what I mean?
But I did think that in this, inwhen you face these types of
(13:18):
challenges, really, to kind ofbe willing to let it take you
where it takes you.
And you're capable of tacklingthat.
I mean, sure, the self-doubtwill creep in because the timing
doesn't happen the way youthought it was going to happen.
Like, I think I would imaginethat OCI, I mean, OCI was in my
(13:42):
year was...
you know, COVID fiasco, frankly.
I would imagine OCI, like, don'tbe discouraged if OCI is not
where you land your foreverhome.
That's a great opportunity, butI actually didn't get my
position through OCI.
And, you know, it was, again,just like not letting that, what
(14:03):
could be perceived as a setback,you know, that you just reach
out to folks.
That was one of the best adviceI can give.
in terms of getting a job, butalso once you get into the firm,
just establishing relationshipsand visibility with people that
it's trial and error a littlebit.
You're like, this person's greatto work with.
(14:24):
I like their work and that kindof thing.
And you only do that by reachingout to people and just picking
their brains.
And it's not like, it's not atransaction.
It's not, yeah, it's not like,oh, well, like you give me this
because I'm onlyself-interested.
It's truly just like kind ofthat initiative that, but you're
have to have kind of a certaindegree of confidence in yourself
(14:46):
like and that that i think weall have to remind ourselves of
frequently because we're all newto it.
I mean, I know that it seemslike I come into this with so
much experience and I got towitness, you know, an expert
navigate all of this.
But, you know, but in many ways,you know, I'm brand new to it.
(15:06):
My mom actually never worked ata firm.
So that's she interacted withfirms, obviously, you know,
extensively.
But that's not, you know, aguidance that she can give me
like from personal experience.
And so there's still all ofthat.
That's like, you know, you'reyou're You made it here for a
reason.
You should have some confidence.
Someone looked at you and sawyour potential and to kind of
(15:30):
own that.
Yeah, stay humble.
But also, you know, you gotyourself there with your hard
work and diligence andpersistence and things like
that.
So I think it's a lot of thosesoft, those kind of soft skills,
because.
The technical stuff of law isnot, like nobody expects you to
know all of the technical stuffwhen you walk in the door.
They just expect you to controlthese controllables, you know,
(15:51):
effort and attitude as it were.
SPEAKER_05 (15:54):
Yes, love that.
Tania, on resiliency and effortand attitude, I feel like you
embody that so well in yourjourney, not even before you
were a health lawyer, while youwere trying to get licensed.
SPEAKER_03 (16:06):
You
SPEAKER_02 (16:07):
had a lot happening.
Oh my gosh.
No, I honestly have to echoeverything Caroline just said
because Because I know aslawyers, we are risk averse and
we want to plan everything out Ato B and we want to account for
everything and you just can't dothat.
So yeah, I graduated law school2020.
(16:28):
I had it all planned out.
I was going to have my baby.
I was going to take the bar andthen have my baby, have some
time off.
And all of that went out thewindow.
I ended up taking the bar onlineat Baker Donaldson with a six
week old.
And it was a scary time becauseI know some people were like
losing their job offers or likeCaroline said, they might have
(16:49):
been getting, you know, pushedback, you And so it's really
just like Caroline said, yougotta stay open.
Anytime something like thiscomes your way, it's an
opportunity for you to shapewhat you want that narrative to
be.
And I could have said, oh, thisisn't gonna work.
It's gonna be too hard.
I just need to defer to the nextbar, blah, blah, blah.
(17:11):
But like Caroline said, we didhard work to get through
college, to law school, throughlaw school.
And so it's just a matter of,reminding yourself like, oh, I
can do hard things.
And this may be something Ihaven't faced before, but I do
have something to contribute andI can overcome things.
And so the more you do that aswell, you get more confident in
(17:35):
yourself that you can do itagain.
And so I, again, I just agreewith everything Caroline said.
And again, about shaping thatnarrative, like Allie said, it
was all over the internet that Itook the bar with the baby with
the benefit of a smart bassinet.
And now our firm is offeringthat bassinet as a parental
leave benefit.
(17:56):
And so I just kind of like usemy experiences to try to, you
know, help other people and getthem through a tough time.
And so, yeah, I love hearingabout, you know, other people
navigating some of this as well,because it just lets people know
you don't have to do a 1L summerand then repeat there.
(18:16):
So there are a lot of differentpathways to get to where we are.
And again, it's just up to youto kind of shape what your story
is going to look like.
So definitely just be proactiveand open.
But it is scary.
I will acknowledge that.
But...
SPEAKER_05 (18:32):
I appreciate both of you being so candid about your
experiences.
I remain convinced that yourgeneration is so gritty and so
resilient because precisely ofall these things that have
happened and all the things andall the changes that keep
happening in the world.
And so it's really exciting.
And I love that both of you arefolks who are taking those
experiences and helping mentorothers and change things for
others so that the next batch offolks who has to face those
(18:55):
challenges has it maybe a littlebit easier or at least has some
guidance to navigate it.
Okay, I think most folks who arelistening to this podcast
probably want to hear about whatdoes a typical day look like for
you as an early career associatein a large law firm focusing on
health law?
What is your day to day?
Is there a typical day?
Tania, do you want to kick usoff?
SPEAKER_02 (19:17):
Yeah, I will start this off.
For us, at least at Baker, ouryoung associates will typically
do kind of a mixed bag oftransactional and regulatory
work.
before they start to kind ofdeclare their major, as I call
it.
I'm someone that still does adecent mix of transactional and
(19:38):
regulatory work.
So I'll just use today as anexample.
I am running diligence on ahospital acquisition.
And so I'm interacting withdifferent, like Caroline said,
healthcare is a ton of things.
So I'm interacting withhealthcare regulatory partners,
benefits council, all thesedifferent people to pull
(20:00):
together diligence review forthis hospital deal And then I
have a niche area of my practicerelated to organ donation.
And so that's a really specificarea that I get to work on where
I might be, you know, navigatingdifferent regulatory issues that
they face or differentregulatory filings that they
have to do.
(20:22):
But my, so to answer yourquestion of whether there's a
typical day, there's not really.
My husband is a teacher.
And so he's like, okay, I gofrom period one to period two at
this time.
And he doesn't, gets verystressed about the fact that
I'll say, oh, someone justdropped a call on my calendar
for 30 minutes from now.
And he's like, how do you livethis way?
But I think part of thatspontaneous aspect is what keeps
(20:48):
this interesting and on yourtoes.
Again, the law is alwayschanging.
Clients will change the facts.
And so some of that adaptabilitythat we've been talking about in
life is applicable to our workas well.
I'm on a couple of mergers wherethey have just changed what
they're trying to do like threetimes.
(21:08):
And I'm like, okay, so before Isend you like, okay, before I
send you the agreement for athird time, please confirm this
is what we're doing and thatthis is the timeline we're
working with.
And so again, it's just a lot ofdifferent things like that, but
I do appreciate that healthcareis still very broad.
(21:28):
So even if you've kind ofnarrowed down an industry
there's still so much out therethat you can get your hands on.
And at Baker, we definitely havethat wide open for associates to
dip their hands in.
In our corporate group as well,again, being in Nashville, they
all touch healthcare deals everyday as well.
(21:50):
So even if you're someone thatmaybe doesn't wanna focus
specifically on healthcare andyou wanna do corporate, there's
still a benefit to getting somebackground and some insight into
different industries, such ashealthcare, just so you
understand clients' businesswhen doing deals or something
for them.
So yeah, lots of differentthings might happen in a day for
(22:12):
me, but lots of calls, lots ofreviewing contracts, lots of
drafting policies, just a lot ofdifferent things.
SPEAKER_05 (22:22):
Yeah, I love it.
Caroline, what about you?
What does your day look like asa second year student?
SPEAKER_00 (22:27):
I can concur that there's the cliche that there is
not like a standard day.
So similar to how Baker does it.
I mean, I would say GT isparticularly entrepreneurial.
You can kind of craft apractice, even as a second year,
(22:49):
that is pretty your own.
I mean, you're always going todo stuff that comes across your
desk, not that you sought, perse.
But you can start to reallycraft that.
And so as of today, I'm workingon– so I actually do sit quite–
do a lot of pure corporate workin addition to– it's corporate
(23:14):
work.
it's corporate in the sense thatit's actually some security
stuff, some governance stuff,things like that, that are to
serve healthcare clients, butalso more of that hybrid
regulatory transactional, likethat Tania mentioned, noted um
(23:36):
and so like as of today i'm onseveral deals um that are
distressed transactions um whichagain speaks to the diversity
that you can do in your in ahealthcare practice um because
there are i mean the margins ona lot of these a lot of these
health care providers are notnecessarily that gargantuan
they're you know they are nomargin no mission but still um
(23:59):
you know and so they are they'rethey're they struggle some of
these so i um have been workingon several transactions that are
out of foreclosure, where theybundle these properties, these
assisted living facilities,independent living facilities,
et cetera, and sell themtogether when the previous
(24:22):
operators weren't able tooperate them in a way that was
profitable.
So I've been working on thosedeals, which includes just
drafting those agreements,corresponding with the client in
on those, trying to make surethat all the legal descriptions
are tracked down, like all ofthat kind of stuff, because
(24:42):
they're kind of combined realestate and operations sales.
And then switch gears todrafting a consent for a simple
agreement for future equity,which is a lot of these life
sciences clients, especiallywhen they're first getting
started, it's very expensive,they need money.
(25:05):
And so they go and get thesefrom investors.
And so it's a lot of that kindof governance work that's very
detail-oriented have to go backand read those bylaws that
everybody learned about back atthe very beginning of law
school, those types of things.
So yeah, and then obviously justemails and calls and trying to
(25:28):
field all of those types ofthings in terms of, and I do
have to sometimes find a littletime to block off undistracted
time for that.
But yeah, there's not really fordrafting and just the deep
thinking, but yeah, so there'snot really a, a standard day,
but that's actually part of thething that's so attractive about
(25:51):
working in a practice that'smore of an industry focus,
unlike something that might be,I know everything about this
particular statute and I willlitigate the heck out of it for
the rest of my career.
But you have this diversity oflike, if you wanna do distressed
transactions, there'sopportunity for that.
If you wanna do life sciences,early stage investing, you can
(26:14):
do some of that.
If you want to do, you know,provider side deals, you can do
provider side deals.
If you want to do, dig reallydeep into reimbursement
regulatory, you can do that.
SPEAKER_05 (26:24):
There really is a lot of breadth to it.
And I think the large firms, youknow, I think that that is maybe
the best thing or one of thebest things of being at a large
firm, especially, you know, bothof y'all are in practices that
have very robust healthcareofferings.
And so you really do get to dipyour toes on, you know, into
everything And I think that thatis something that really serves
(26:47):
early career folks really well.
And to your point, Caroline, Ithink it, People are surprised
when large firm lawyers mentionthe entrepreneurial nature of a
lot of our practices.
But I would say that becausethere is such a breadth and
depth to everything that'savailable at the firm, you kind
of get to decide, you know,right, you're an adventurer and
(27:08):
really explore and develop thoseniches as you're interested,
which I think makes it a reallyfun and dynamic practice.
I don't know if we always thinkit's fun, but I think overall it
comes out in the wash assomething that's really fun and
interesting.
So obviously, this is anAHLA-sponsored podcast, so we'd
be remiss to not chat about howyou guys got involved with AHLA,
(27:31):
what it has meant for yourcareer, some highlights that you
might have had.
I know both of you have attendeddifferent conferences at AHLA
and educational programs thatAHLA has hosted, so I would love
to learn a little bit more aboutwhy y'all chose to get involved
and what that's looked like foryou.
Antonia, you can kick us off.
SPEAKER_02 (27:50):
Yeah, I can jump in.
If I'm not mistaken, I mighthave even started following AHLA
as a law student.
I believe that.
Yeah.
And I like so I transactions isone of the conferences that is
typically in Nashville.
And so it's very accessible tome and very encouraged by our
firm that we participate.
(28:10):
But it's always just such goodcontent.
AHLA has really good resources.
And similar to the podcast we'redoing now, there are
opportunities for young lawyersto start to build a name for
themselves.
So I've done a couple articleswith AHLA that have just kind of
helped me get some experience onmarketing and business
(28:30):
development.
But even on a substantive note,the resources have just been
really helpful over the years.
So even when I'm not able to getto some of the conferences, we
will have one of our associateskind of report out and share
documents or PowerPoints thatwere spoken on at the
conference.
But So there's all of that.
(28:51):
There's great substantiveresources, great opportunities
for young lawyers.
And it's also a really good wayto meet other people.
I know there are people I met atmy very first transactions
conference that I still keep intouch with now.
And I think that's really cool.
And you look forward to seeingeach other every time and just
start to build that community,which was something that has
(29:13):
been a priority for me everprimarily because my first year
was all remote everything.
I've been really trying to takeadvantage of things where I can
to get out there and travel somejust because I didn't have that
opportunity that first yearbecause of COVID.
And so I don't know if otherpeople, my years sort of feel a
little behind, but to the extentI can get in there and go to
(29:39):
some more AHLA events, that'sdefinitely something high on my
radar.
And also that the firmdefinitely supports Just because
it's always great content, greatcommunity, and things like that.
So that's my two cents.
But yeah, AHLA has just beeningrained in my workflow from
the very beginning.
It was like a never questionthat I would get involved with
(30:03):
it.
I'm just happy to continue doingthings like this and finding
different ways to, because likewe said, the firm is Choose Your
Own Adventure.
AHLA is also Choose Your OwnAdventure.
So you can go to differentconferences.
You can write, you can speak,you can, there's all these
different things that you cankind of get plugged in.
SPEAKER_05 (30:21):
Caroline, how did you?
I agree with that.
SPEAKER_00 (30:25):
There's all of the above, you know, retweet.
So, yeah, I actually gotinvolved in HLA in law school.
I met a fellow Notre Dame grad,Rob Gurberry, and he and now and
now we have like a little NotreDame reunion at all the
(30:45):
different HLA conferences.
So I always I mean, I'm alwaysprioritize the AHLA Transactions
Conference, especially.
Selfishly, it's also a way forme to get
SPEAKER_04 (30:58):
open.
SPEAKER_00 (31:01):
But it is a great, it's a great conference and it's
timely.
And they always have, you know,like I think two years ago, like
the emphasis of just the macroenvironment was a lot of baby
HSRs.
And this year with the differentkind of regime change or
whatever, it's a lot of likeantitrust.
So it's very, it was verytimely, you know, and you get,
(31:23):
and you get, and it's a range.
It's not just, if you are youngand all of this and not as
fluent in the language, as itwere.
then there's something for you.
If you have something that's...
Like my mom, we went to thisconference together.
Well, not together, but we did,you know, and she has...
We hung out at the conference.
(31:43):
And she gets to see, you know,things that are really timely
for her who is beyond fluent inthe language.
And I am still, you know,learning a lot of this stuff and
some of the more sophisticatedstructures and things like that,
that she's going to go and seethat.
But if you, or if you'resomewhere in between, there's
something you can take out ofall of these speakers.
(32:04):
They're so knowledgeable.
It's a great way to get to knowpeople and reconnect with
people.
I mean, I reconnected with Aliat this conference.
But also, you just meet newpeople that are, you know, I
mean, the last conference I gotinvited to like a little dinner
just like on a whim from one ofthe booth people because we got
to talking and it was like twodegrees of separation of how we
(32:27):
knew, you name it.
And so that kind of organicstuff that just takes place.
And so I really encouragepeople, if you have any interest
in health care law, in whatevercapacity, to just explore AHLA
early in your law school careeror any time thereafter.
(32:49):
Because the resources arefantastic.
The publications are fantastic.
They're very useful.
I mean, when I first started,one of the things that a fellow
health care associate whostarted in regulatory and
transitioned to transactional,but he really liked that.
He was like, I really got acommand of the regulatory before
I moved into the transactional.
(33:10):
And one of the things that herecommended, he was like, take
that fundamentals book and readit.
He said, because nobody's doingthat.
Nobody's reading that cover tocover as just like an
introduction to this.
And one, you get so muchinformation.
And two, you get to sort oflike, what of this stuff is
(33:35):
interesting to you?
And so I would relay that to anew person that might be
interested in it, is one, justplug into it and just like, by
osmosis, kind of find yourpeople, find your, the resources
that are helpful for you.
And then, I mean, if you reallyare like, just completely not,
don't know if healthcare is foryou, I don't know if you want to
(33:56):
read the
SPEAKER_06 (33:57):
fundamentals,
SPEAKER_00 (33:59):
but if you're, you know, if you're early on and
you're like, you know, I thinkthis is, this intrigues me.
I think I want to, then, then Iwould, I would take that as
well, because it is, it is a wayto kind of just quickly absorb
information and are really,really, and it's, and it's
updated and they're, and they'rereally good information.
I mean, also you can just readit as you come across issues.
That's another way to do it.
Like, I know they have likevarious surveys and, you know,
(34:24):
you just like when you'reworking on something and it's a
specific question, you tend tolike just be so zeroed in on
that.
It's like, oh, maybe just read alittle bit more.
paragraph before, paragraphafter, or this whole section in
this, you know, the Californiacorporate practice in medicine,
you know, or
SPEAKER_04 (34:42):
whatever section.
All of us live by that 50 statecorporate practice of medicine.
It's a popular one.
I
SPEAKER_03 (34:48):
would be disbarred without that book.
I would not make it without thatbook.
SPEAKER_05 (34:54):
I'm looking over here directly in my line of
sight.
I have all those and I will makea plug for it.
There is the AHI Fundamentals ofHealth Law book, which back in
my day, that one did not exist.
So now it's a handy book insteadof sort of the fundamentals
binder, though I still print outthe fundamentals binder anytime
I get to attend fundamentals.
But Fundamentals of Health Lawfor our listeners is a
(35:15):
conference that we have thatreally is geared more towards
the early career folks.
And it's kind of what it soundslike.
You go and you get an intro toall all things healthcare, but I
have gone even as, you know, aslightly more seasoned lawyer
and I still learn a lot ofthings.
It's so helpful.
And then transactions, which youboth mentioned is a really
popular one.
It's here in Nashville and folkswho do transactional work for
(35:38):
healthcare clients gather andthe content is so good.
I feel like everyone was at thetax training during this last
conference, but HLA also has anacronym book.
And I know we did a podcastepisode with the author and that
is kind of what it sounds like.
It demystifies the alphabet soupof health law acronyms, which we
(35:59):
love our acronyms.
(36:23):
of this episode where we shareabout what it's like to be at a
law firm, at a large law firm,one of the great things is just
access to those resources.
So I'd be shocked if we don'tall have the same sort of core
library accessible to us of allthose AHLA products.
And oftentimes, if for somereason your firm doesn't have
one, you can order it and it'ssomething that the firm wants to
(36:46):
get for you.
So we would encourage you, ifyou are a listener who is at a
large law firm, please don'thesitate to ask for those AHLA
resources.
They're so great.
And chances are that yourlibrary probably actually has
them available for you.
Okay.
The other thing that we get alot of questions about on Law
Firm Life is firm culture andwork-life balance, which I think
(37:09):
that some folks who have notexperienced Law Firm Life can be
a little bit spooked by sort ofthis thought of, you know, big
firm, lots of people.
What have your experiences beenlike working at large law firms?
And what do you think reallyfolks, what would you encourage
folks to look for as far as likefinding I think for me, like you
(37:30):
said,
SPEAKER_02 (37:46):
you know, challenging healthcare practice
was kind of a given for all theNashville firms.
And so I had to look beyondthat.
And I had just recently gottenmarried when I was doing my
summer associate positions.
And so I was kind of thinkingthrough, okay, is this a firm
that has a lot of parents?
And particularly in ourhealthcare group, I wanted to
(38:07):
know, like, are there a lot ofparents in this group?
Like, is it possible andfeasible to, you you know, to do
this work and have a family.
And also just looking at whatdoes the firm kind of offer to
support parents?
Like, for example, we offer likebreast milk shipping if I have
to travel for work and we havelike emergency childcare
(38:31):
reimbursement and differentthings like that that just make
it possible to be able to have afamily and still do this work.
Something to also be askingabout and thinking about are
billable outlays.
requirements some firms are notas strict about it some are like
you have to hit this number sothose are just some things you
(38:51):
want to think about because thatwill kind of shape you know the
culture and how things operatefor me it it took me a little
bit of time to like get my headaround okay I need to do x
number of hours but what doesthat break down to per month per
week per day thinking becausethis is a very unique job in the
sense that I could be at workyou know, all day, I might be
(39:13):
there eight hours and five ofthose were billable or four of
those were billable.
And so I'm like, well, I dideverything you told me to do,
but my hours are bad.
It's like, so it's verychallenging to like get over
that hump because it took me awhile to be like, well, I'm
doing everything they said andI'm going to the meetings and
I'm writing the articles, butyou still have to do the
(39:36):
billable hours.
So just kind of thinking throughWhat does that look like?
And I have found that it's veryhelpful to plan out those days
that I know are going to be atwo-hour, three-hour billable
day.
Or even if I have vacation, goahead and just write a zero for
that week and calculate aroundit.
(39:57):
because you're not going to justfall into the goal accidentally.
Yeah, you're not going to fallinto it.
And you don't want to be like mepretty much a couple of years in
a row where I'm at the end ofthe fiscal year scrambling to
fit it all in.
So my recommendation isdefinitely to ask some of those
questions about what therequirements are.
(40:18):
I know we also have anon-billable expectation.
And so doing things like this isencouraged and monitored.
you know, just getting a sensefor the firm's priorities and
making sure they align with yourown because you're, the firms
are interviewing you, but you'realso interviewing them.
And so you have choices and wantto have choices about where to
(40:38):
go.
And so looking for some of thosequestions, I also asked a little
bit about what programs do youoffer for minorities and women?
And just some of those thingsjust really shape what the
environment is like.
If I ask someone, this may be awhite man, and if he can't tell
me anything about the firm'swomen's initiative, then or
(41:00):
diversity efforts, then that ismaybe a sign that it's not a
firm-wide priority.
And so just asking some of thosequestions in a tactful way can
get you some answers.
When was your last vacation?
What was the last movie you saw?
Different things like that.
Exactly, exactly.
If they have no answers, redflag.
(41:24):
Red flag, I don't like it.
So a lot of that, and I havebeen happy that you know, I was
not in any sort of bait andswitch.
So I was happy to find that tothe extent you can, Baker is a
really good environment forwork-life balance.
But again, I have kids.
And so that is often out thewindow at my own place.
(41:45):
But anyway,
SPEAKER_05 (41:48):
yeah.
No, I totally get what you mean.
Caroline, how about you?
What would you say to folks whomight be a little spooked by the
prospect of joining a large lawfirm?
How can you...
how both that firm culture, butalso how can you manage that
work-life balance from the earlydays?
I feel like you're probably inthe thick of establishing what
that looks like for you as ayounger associate.
SPEAKER_00 (42:09):
Yeah, it's definitely one of those things
that you kind of have to, atleast once you start.
So the evaluative process of thefirm itself, of course, it's
important to understand billablehour requirements and
understanding that there'ssometimes there's unspoken
billable hour requirements atcertain firms.
And to see kind of what's thetone about transparency, that's
(42:33):
one of the ways.
And that might not be in yourinterview, but you could just
talk to people.
Yeah, people from your undergrador law school that had landed
there or people that youotherwise know that might give
you sort of some candidinformation about what it's like
there That's not just a salespitch, like the bait and switch
(42:57):
part, because that is somethingto kind of keep your eyes and
ears open for.
I know there's a tendency to belike, oh, just like the
desperation of getting a job,you know, which I feel like in
this environment is very real.
I mean, like COVID was real.
That was very real.
But also keep your, you know,you know your values and like
(43:19):
look and see, I mean, the bestthing that you can probably do
is just really have some, to theextent you have, you know, over
the last few years, establishlike some sense of clarity
around what your values are.
You know, that's kind of lookfor those and look for proxies
for those values.
Like I went to a happy hourafter work with a new
(43:42):
prospective, like internalclient, like he, you know, he
might, he has some, work,corporate work, things like
that, where he might, and it'sjust like a very candid, you
know, normal conversation.
We're not talking too much aboutwork.
It's not, it's, you know, we'reboth evaluating each other a
little bit, you know.
And, you know, but you justlisten for that, you know,
(44:04):
listen for the values, theproxies for values.
Like, you know, he was talkingabout how he, he was like a
seventh year associate at avery, very large, prominent, you
know, like white shoe law firm.
And he was like, my wife, I wasin the grocery store and she
hadn't seen me for a week andshe was, you know, trying to
(44:29):
juggle all these children and hehas to take a call because he's
on, he's on a deal and she'd hadenough, you know?
Um, and he said, you know, justin passing, he was like, well,
my family is more important thanmy job.
So I decided to figure out whatwas a better fit, you know, and
he, and he, and he foundsomething that worked for him.
Um, But it's those kind ofsubtle, just in passing type of
(44:52):
things that people say when youget to know them to determine if
this is one, the right firm foryou, but also is this person the
right person to work with?
Because one of the advice that Igot when I was in high school,
actually, that I think istransferable to this environment
is, and it was actually tochoose a small school versus a
(45:13):
large school.
And the advice was, you can makea big school small, but you
can't make a small school big.
And I think that, and I didn'tgrasp all of that, the meaning
of all of that when I was, youknow, 17, you know, whatever.
But even at a large law firm,you know, there's also like,
what team are you going to beworking on?
(45:35):
Who are those people?
Because they will influence yourlife and your career trajectory,
certainly, but your life in themeantime, a lot more than some,
you know, the collective 3000people or whatever that are
involved, however large your lawfirm is.
And so it's important to, yes,understand those kind of the
(45:58):
top-down pressures from theadministration, but also what's
the composition of this team.
And when you look up the chain,do these people have a life that
you think is something that youwould want to model your life in
part off of, you might, I mean,it won't be a hundred percent,
but you know, but is that, whenyou look up the chain, is that
something that you would wantfor yourself?
(46:18):
Because you do kind ofeventually start to establish
like your cadence kind of alignswith their cadence and that kind
of thing.
And so if that's not, if there'snot an alignment, if they have a
life that you're like on paper,that looks really great, but it
just doesn't really align withmy, with my life, you know, with
my, with my, um, with my valuesthat I've established or
(46:41):
whatever, then I think that'sreally important.
But it starts with some degreeof clarity on what those values
are for you to listen to whatthose proxies for those values
are.
Because you often cannot just,you know, you can't be that
forward about it.
You can be bold.
(47:02):
I encourage people
SPEAKER_05 (47:03):
to be bold.
But you might not get theanswer.
You might not get an honestanswer.
So I do think that yoursuggestion of proxies, which I
think Danielle also sort ofspoke of.
Yes.
Okay.
Well, as we start to wrap upyour time, I would love to know
if you you guys could go backand tell your undergrad selves
(47:24):
one piece of advice.
It doesn't necessarily have tobe around health law, but just
generally think about where youare today.
If you could go back to them andlet them know that things worked
out well and to keep one pieceof advice in mind, what would
you guys say to yourselves?
Tania, do you want to kick usoff?
SPEAKER_02 (47:43):
I think it would have to kind of go back to
something we said earlier, whichwas like, don't get too caught
up in your ABCD plan, havingthose values, like Caroline
said, can guide kind of whereyou're headed.
And that being said, it's okayif it doesn't look exactly how
you thought it would look.
(48:04):
I did not expect to take the barin a room by myself at a firm.
I did not expect to have myoffer delayed by a few months.
All these different things werenot how I envisioned them.
I also didn't even envisionbeing a lawyer at first.
And so just kind of trustingthat those values and the hard
(48:25):
work that we put in will kind ofget you where you need to be
because otherwise you'll stressyourself out getting hung up on
timing and expectations anddifferent things like that that
that don't have to be the focusthe focus is um the success that
you're you're crafting foryourself every day um and that
(48:46):
that's definitely something thatI I have struggled with and
struggle with still so I'mtalking to myself as much as
anyone um but yeah just stayingflexible like we said at the
beginning um will will make youcomfortable with where you are
and where you're headed
SPEAKER_05 (49:02):
I love that, thank you.
Caroline, what would you tellundergrad Caroline
SPEAKER_00 (49:07):
I think I would pose a question to Caroline.
I think it would be, yeah, Iwould say, because I think one
of the biggest things that I,that is like speaking to the
values earlier, is really kindof listening to yourself.
Because this profession and, youknow, in law school and all
(49:30):
these things, there's a trackand you think you have to follow
it.
And there's a lot of noise.
People tell you that you have todo this if you want to get to
here.
You have to do, you have to do,you have to do.
But you can't discern which onesof those are for you and which
ones are not for you if youdon't really kind of have a core
(49:50):
understanding of what you wantand that type of thing, and not
making decisions purely off offear.
And so I think that's critical.
And so the question that I wouldask myself probably, or the
first thing that comes to mindis, you know, what would you do
if you knew it was all going tobe okay?
SPEAKER_04 (50:09):
I love that.
I feel like we all need to hearthat today.
SPEAKER_00 (50:13):
Because it frees you up to really kind of be bold
where you should be bold andmake those decisions that align
your life with what you want itto be.
And that's a very individualexercise.
Unfortunately, I can't get onhere and be like, this is what
everybody should do becauseeverybody's values are
different.
Their priors are different.
(50:35):
They come to the table withdifferent things, hopes, dreams,
fears, et cetera.
But that's That's what I wouldask myself.
And I think that also alignswell with what Tenia was saying.
It provides you with additionalflexibility.
There's no one prescribedsuccessful path in this, in
health law, in law generally.
(50:55):
If you get on a track and you'relike, this is not the track for
me, get off the track.
Even if some, even if all thesepeople that are at high up and
they're telling you, you know,this is catastrophic.
This is, you have to do it thisway because this is how we did
it 20 years ago.
And there's a track and you haveto follow it.
If you don't like the track, getoff the track.
(51:18):
You know, but you can't youcan't make those kind of you
can't have that kind of wisdom,really, if you haven't really
done that kind of just you andyour thoughts inside in your in
your home, you know, without thenoise of outside influence all
the time.
SPEAKER_05 (51:33):
Asking yourself that question is very healthy.
Well, how can listeners connectwith you guys or learn more
about your work?
SPEAKER_02 (51:42):
Go for it.
I mean, I'm on LinkedIn.
You can find me usually likingAllie's post.
So if you just look at her,
SPEAKER_06 (51:50):
look
SPEAKER_02 (51:51):
at her recents and you'll find me, Tania Clayton,
on LinkedIn.
I like to share kind of whereI'm headed and what I'm up to on
there, including conferenceslike transactions.
SPEAKER_05 (52:02):
Yeah.
And Caroline, I feel likesimilarly with you, I assume.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_02 (52:07):
well.
SPEAKER_00 (52:08):
Likewise, you can find me on LinkedIn.
I'm Caroline K.
Abbott.
And, you know, and obviously onthe firm website, you can look
me up if you wish.
SPEAKER_06 (52:19):
You're going the formal route,
SPEAKER_00 (52:22):
but always available and accessible on LinkedIn.
Likewise, you know, interactingwith...
We've interacted with like andAli's posts, all the LinkedIn
influencers these days, legalinfluencers.
So yeah, you can find me onLinkedIn.
SPEAKER_05 (52:38):
It's a good community out there.
Well, thank you so much to youand Caroline for sharing your
stories and your wisdom with ourlisteners today.
And thank you to our listenersfor tuning in today.
If you're an early career healthprofessional, we'd love to
connect with you and share moreabout the volunteer and
networking opportunities thatare available to early career
professionals through AHLA.
We'll see you all next time.
SPEAKER_01 (53:01):
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to
AHLA's Speaking of Health Lawwherever you get your podcasts.
For more information about AHLAand the educational resources
available to the health lawcommunity, visit
AmericanHealthLaw.org.
And stay updated on breakinghealthcare industry news from
the major media outlets withAHLA's Health Law Daily Podcast,
(53:22):
exclusively for AHLA Premiummembers.
To subscribe and add thisprivate podcast feed to your
podcast app, go toAmericanHealthLaw.org slash
Daily Podcast.
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