In this series from AHLA’s Early Career Professionals Council, health law professionals share their career paths, what they wish they had known as students, and what a typical day in their job looks like. In this episode, Rob Yates, Managing Consultant, Berkeley Research Group, speaks with Samuel Shapiro, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Western District of Texas. Samuel talks about his role in the Civil Division representing the United States in False Claims Act cases, how his desire for litigation experience led him to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the importance of learning about the different areas of health law and connecting with people in the field early on.
Watch the conversation here.
To learn more about AHLA and the educational resources available to the health law community, visit americanhealthlaw.org.
In this series from AHLA’s Early Career Professionals Council, health law professionals share their career paths, what they wish they had known as students, and what a typical day in their job looks like. In this episode, Rob Yates, Managing Consultant, Berkeley Research Group, speaks with Samuel Shapiro, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Western District of Texas. Samuel talks about his role in the Civil Division representing the United States in False Claims Act cases, how his desire for litigation experience led him to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the importance of learning about the different areas of health law and connecting with people in the field early on.
Watch the conversation here.
To learn more about AHLA and the educational resources available to the health law community, visit americanhealthlaw.org.
<silence> This episode of A H L A speaking of health law is brought to you by A H L A members and donors like you. For more information, visit American health law.org.
Speaker 2:Hello, and welcome back to another installment of ALA's Health Law Career Journeys podcast series, brought to you by the Early Career Professionals Council . I'm your host, Rob Yates, and I'm a healthcare governments and regulatory compliance advisor with Burglary Research group. Our goal here with the series is to highlight the breadth of career paths in ALA's membership and encourage those who are just starting their careers in health law to explore all of the different possibilities that the space has to offer. Our guest today is Samuel Shapiro, and I'm really excited to chat about his experience as an assistant US attorney for the West District of Texas. Sam, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Good to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for joining us today. Uh, could you just explain a little bit about your role as an A U SS A and kind of what it looks like on a day-to-day basis?
Speaker 3:Sure. So I am , uh, an assistant u s attorney in the civil division. Um, and , um, my office, as with many other US attorney's offices, splits its civil division into both the affirmative and defensive side. So either affirmative United States as plaintiff, defensive United States as defendant, and I am on the affirmative side . So the vast majority of my work is in the False Claims Act arena.
Speaker 2:Alright . And , uh, I know it is different in, in every US attorney's office, but is your office one that does , um, just healthcare ace work, or is it also , uh, the , the full breadth of representing the United States as a plaintiff?
Speaker 3:We have the full breadth and , um, though we, you know, most , um, especially Keam cases where a whistleblower brings us a case around the country are in healthcare, something like 75%. I think. Um, we, in San Antonio especially because we have , uh, a large military presence , um, have a good number of procurement fraud cases involving defense contractors or even civilian contractors working with , um, the military. Um, so we see a lot of that, and a lot of those cases will not even come to us from a , the , they'll be what we call a direct referral, meaning we get it from the agency. Typically an agent who's been working the case up, we'll pass it along to us .
Speaker 2:Okay . So , uh, would you , how , how would you say you probably split time between the cases and the healthcare fraud ?
Speaker 3:Right now it's probably 50 50 . Um, add to that , uh, good number of, of Covid fraud related cases, particularly with the P P P program.
Speaker 2:Sure , sure . So how did you, how did you end up as a , an assistant US attorney? Um, I know a lot of people don't, don't come right outta law school or get that gig or, or end up with their dream job right outta law school. So,
Speaker 3:No, it's certainly not one that's , um, easy to get right out of school. Um, I would say that for those who are looking to get there as quickly as possible , uh, a direct route is first of all, doing very well in school and, and getting a clerkship. Um, I did not go this route, but a number of my colleagues were former clerks and , um, you know, were able to go straight to the US Attorney's office from clerkships or, you know , um, through the D O J Honors program, which I highly encourage anybody to, to look into , um, that takes place in dc you know, it's , it's a job that does require a move to DC typically. Um, but it does open many doors once , once you complete the honors program. But , um, no, my path was , um, much less straightforward. Um, Rob and I actually went to the, the same law school, which , um, at Georgia State has a, a fantastic health law program. Um, I did not go into law school expecting to be interested in healthcare law. Um , at the time I was in law school, the Affordable Care Act was all the rage and everybody wanted to know everything about that. So did I, and got into that in the health healthcare law program and expected that I would be a healthcare regulatory transactional attorney. That was my goal the entire time I was in law school. Um, out of law school. I worked in-house at McKesson, which was a great job , um, but doing healthcare , uh, regulatory work. Um, but realized quickly that, that I wanted to get , um, some litigation experience as well. So from there, I, I moved over to a firm that , uh, where I started working with a partner who did a lot of false claims at cases. And, and right away I knew that , um, that that's what I, what I wanted to pursue. So since that time, since about a year out of school , school after leaving , uh, McKesson, I have been working in the False Claims Act space , both on the defense side and now on the , for the government.
Speaker 2:Awesome. I think that's, yeah, that's a really , um, it's a different path certainly than, than a lot of people take. Um, yeah . You don't hear a lot of , uh, transactional to, to litigation attorneys.
Speaker 3:No. Um, no , I I think that's, that's right. It's, it's, and , and the further along you get in your career, just so younger attorneys know, I mean, that transition does become harder. So, but, but it is possible to make that switch early on if, if you're not happy with , um, with what you're doing, it , it's much easier to make that switch within the first few years of practice than it might be later on.
Speaker 2:That's a really, really good point. I think it's really important early , early in your career to, to try and fail at, at different things than to, to pigeonhole yourself into one thing at , at the start. So I think we've already touched on it a little bit, but do you have any, any advice or , uh, sage wisdom for students or early, early career professionals who might be interested in a similar career path?
Speaker 3:Talk to everybody. You can. Um, it , the saying that law school doesn't teach you how to practice law is true. Um, it also doesn't teach you about the practice of law. Um, you learn theory, which is great and useful and you need to know it. Um, but when you get out there, you may not even know that certain practice areas even exist. Um, and I certainly did not, was , was not aware of, you know, this sort of niche False Claims Act practice. I knew about healthcare fraud, I knew about the False Claims Act. I knew how it related to the anti-kickback statute and how companies needed to , um, comply with Stark and Anti-Kickback and, and , um, you know, various other fraud and abuse regulations. And I was interested in that, but I really didn't even realize for a while that there was this sort of niche , um, false Claims Act defense and, and , uh, even an even more niche practice where , um, you know, involving whistleblower attorneys, if you want to be on the plaintiff side of these cases and not work for the government, there is an entire space for that as well that has , um, blossomed within the last decade, especially, I would say, where , um, you know, there are entire firm's dedicated now to representing whistleblowers in False Claims Act cases. A lot of them do other whistleblower , uh, cases as well involving S T C and , and things of that nature. But , um, this one particular statute has, you know, a whole sort of community and , and world built around it. So , um, it's been great for me to learn that. Um, but going back to the question, talk to people, find out what they do , um, you know, and do that early, you are, you are never less threatening. And when I say threatening , I mean , no one's going to think you want something when you are A one L let's say. They have nothing to offer you when you're A one L. So when you cold call them to go for lunch, they know it's just to give you advice, not, you're not gonna be poking around for a job. They don't have a job to offer you when you're A one L. So you're not, you're not threatening to them in any way, or, or , or making them feel uncomfortable about , uh, you know, poking around. Well, sorry, we don't have a job to offer you. Of course they don't. You're a one L you're just there to learn. Uh, the same is true when you're, you know , a baby attorney. Um, just go to lunch with people, talk to people , um, network, join organizations like A H L A , um, A H L A helped me out a lot when I was , uh, a younger attorney and just, I , I wrote articles and was able to get my name out there a little bit. Um, I participated in, in a young lawyers program and met lawyers that way. I attended conferences and, and sat in on panels discussing things that I had no idea where , you know, that these, again, areas of practice even existed till I sat in the con in the conference room and listened to people talk about it. So , um, you can't know what you're interested in until you know what there is to be interested in. So get out there, meet people, talk about different areas of practice so that you can have a successful career. I think if you really like what you're doing, you need to know what all the options are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's 100% excellent advice. I , uh, can't tell , can't tell people, you gotta start this early, early, early, early. I heard it when I was a one L and I didn't start it until I was a three L or first year journey and it set me back . So definitely start that as early as you can when you're as least threatening as possible and get up and meet as many people as you can and find out what you don't know.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks so much for joining us today, Sam. I think this has been really helpful for our listeners and , uh, take care.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Rob.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to a H L A speaking of health law wherever you get your podcasts. To learn more about a H L A and the educational resources available to the health law community, visit American health law.org .