AHLA's Speaking of Health Law
The American Health Law Association (AHLA) is the largest nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization devoted to legal issues in the health care field. AHLA's Speaking of Health Law podcasts offer thoughtful analysis and insightful commentary on the legal and policy issues affecting the American health care system.
AHLA's Speaking of Health Law
Career Journeys in Health Care Law Firms
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.
Watch this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CIx8c9pQOE
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SPEAKER_05:Welcome to today's episode of Speaking of Health Law brought to you by the American Health Law Association and the Early Career Professionals Council. The Early Career Professionals Council is a forum for the discussion of issues pertaining to early career professionals and students in the healthcare and health law world. I'm Allie Dalton and I'm your host for today. I'm a partner at Bradley where I get to help clients navigate deals and day-to-day operations in a highly regulated industry. I also have the privilege of serving as the chair of the Early Career Professionals Council. Today, Today's episode is all about the life of healthcare associates at large firms. Our guests for today are Tania Clayton, who's an associate at Baker Donaldson, and Caroline Abbott, who's an associate at Greenberg Torgue. We hope this conversation will help showcase the opportunities available to law firm associates and early career professionals who might be interested in becoming law firm associates and focusing on healthcare law and what life looks like in this role. Please note that the views expressed today are our own and not that of our employers. So without further delay, welcome to the podcast, y'all. Hi, thanks for the welcome.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thank you for having us.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, to start, Caroline, could you share a little bit about your journey into health law and what drew you into this area of practice? I think you have a little bit of a unique fun fact about yourself that I think our listeners might find very interesting.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, happy to. Yeah, so I grew up in Nashville. I am currently based in Washington, D.C., but as a result of that, I very much grew up in the healthcare space. My mom is, and it was a general counsel, chief legal officer in-house at several different hospital systems and provider organizations, and I very much grew up, you know, under her deaths, quite literally, with my colored pencils and goldfish. And so I really had kind of an exposure to this kind of law from a very early age, that that was an option, that it's not just litigation and corporate exclusively in those big categories. And the rest of my family is likewise in health care in some capacity. My dad was a nurse, and my grandmother you know, the lead at the radiology tech of one of the more prominent physician practices in Nashville. So I had that kind of exposure very early on, but I also had exposure not just to the fact that you could do health law, but that there was just such a range of what you could do in health law. Like you can do corporate, you can do labor and employment, you can, I mean, just all of these range of things that it wasn't just these kind of really, really high level categories that you that you could take a path on.
SPEAKER_05:That's great. Thank you. I love that fun fact about your mom. And I had a chance to meet her at the HLA Transactions Conference earlier this year. And it was really great to see both of y'all practicing and doing your thing. Tania, could you share a little bit about your journey into health law and what drew you to this area of practice? I think something that our guests might find or our listeners might find interesting is that you sort of went in with that focus and got a chance to really focus your law school classes on health law. So we'd love to hear a little bit more about that
SPEAKER_02:yeah um I think my my story is similar to Caroline's in that I maybe got some exposure to health law sooner than others but it's different from hers which I also love because we're kind of highlighting the different paths that people can take and I so I'm a first generation law student um currently a fifth year associate in Baker Donaldson's health law practice group um also from Nashville so that's another fun fact about this group um But anyway, I spent my entire childhood saying that I was going to be an anesthesiologist specifically. I don't know why. I think I just thought that, you know, it was an important job and would set me up for the kind of lifestyle that I wanted. But it turns out I hate science. So my pre-med dreams quickly went out the window. But I did my undergrad at Emory University. And, you know, Emory is basically right down the street from the CDC. And so it has a very heavy public health policy. presence in Atlanta. And so I changed my major to human health. And so that's where I started to get an interest in more of like a health care policy and a legal standpoint. And then from there, just wanting to move back home to Nashville, Belmont actually has a health law certificate program. So I was able to kind of early on get some exposure to fraud and abuse, corporate issues. We have a health care transactions moot court team that I participated in. And I think all of that really helped set me up for this career in health law. And again, just being in Nashville with it being such a heavy healthcare town, it all kind of just fit into place that way. So I love that our stories are a little bit different, but I think Caroline and I also came to health law a little bit sooner than maybe some others may have.
SPEAKER_05:Yes. And if you are someone who's listening and feeling like, oh my goodness, am I behind because my mom or my parent is not a health law lawyer, or I didn't go to a law school or didn't study or major in anything related to health, just know that I'm proof that you can definitely do it while at a law firm, not really knowing anything about health law, similar to y'all, I'm based out of Nashville. And so as a summer associate here, it was impossible to miss the presence of healthcare as an industry and a potential opportunity as a rising or an aspiring lawyer. And so that's sort of how I fell into it. Certainly wish I would have had more access to health law classes and all the fancy things that I feel like law students have now. Though my law school offers a certificate now as well. And so it's really cool to see how it's developed into this practice area that a lot of folks know about early on as they start their careers Tania, could you share a little bit more about how you got your job at your firm and any experiences that helped shape your career direction? You touched a little bit on that while being at Emory and that access to the CDC, but how did you get to where you are today?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so back in my day, it was not as common in Nashville to have 1L summer associates. And so I started to feel a little bit behind, kind of like you said, because I didn't do a big firm role until my 2L summer. But that's where I found Baker Donaldson. And so I split my summer. Again, back then, it was more common to do a shorter program and split between two firms. And so I was between two firms here in town. And Both have great health care practices. Both would have been a great start. But what really drew me to Baker was, so I came to Baker through our summer associate program, but I had also received our diversity scholarship. And so that really highlighted for me some of the values and the culture that I was looking for and some of that collegiality that I was looking for. And all of that has continued to be reflective of my current. work environment. And so I was, I've been happy with the choice. I always kind of say it was the easiest. Yes. Aside from when I got married. So
SPEAKER_05:don't regret either of those choices. So that's great. Caroline, what about you? I feel like you had an interesting path to your current role at your firm. I'd be curious to know sort of how did you end up, especially as a Nashvilleian ended up in DC, which is also, of course, a really great city for healthcare, but looks a little bit different from how Tanya and I ended up here in Nashville?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. So I kind of had to remain open-minded. When I went into law school, I was not dead set on a market like, oh, I'm going to D.C. and I am going to be singularly focused on D.C. What really happened was COVID. And that really disrupted all kinds of hiring processes. The number of people that were hired, the timing of the hiring process. You could do things earlier. They threw out all the rules about timing. And so it was kind of just, it was the wild, wild west in many respects. And so I kind of had to pivot, adapt, really take kind of initiative in terms of talking to a lot of different people that I might not have actually actually considered doing if I absent such a kind of disruptive event. So as a result of that, I kind of expanded my geography. And having gone to Notre Dame, that was definitely an opportunity that was available to me, given just the fantastic network of people that are so willing to help you. Notre Dame's really good about that. So Chicago was still on the table. Atlanta, another southern market, was on the table. Just where could I launch my career? And so DC ended up being one of the most, viable options for me. And so after having spoken with a lot of folks at the firm, I felt like it had, it was going to give me the opportunity to kind of leverage my three-legged stool of my undergrad being international relations politics and my law degree, obviously, and then my MBA in finance and strategy. So I felt like that was going to just, DC was a good place to be able to leverage that. The firm in particular within healthcare practice, sophisticated, you know, corporate life sciences, all of those types of things, the different angles on healthcare that you might not. But I certainly was not necessarily exposed to when I was when I was growing up. It was very hospital system centric. It's very provider side centric, understandably. But it did kind of broaden my perspective. my just horizon, I guess, in terms of what was actually available in this broader category of healthcare, not just healthcare provider side, healthcare, just all of the different dimensions that can go into it. And so that was really attractive to me. And so I was like, you know, what better place to be where the action's happening.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely. And I want to get to both of you sharing about what your typical day looks like for our listeners. But before we get to that, I think both of you all have touched on sort of the unique factors that impacted your journey in being able to get your role at the firm. And we would obviously be missing the elephant in the room if we didn't mention COVID was such a huge shaping factor for both of you. Tania, you sort of became internet famous is maybe not the right phrase, but a little bit as someone who took the bar immediately while having a new board, like shortly after, because the bar kept getting pushed back. And so there was some challenges presented, obviously, with that. I think maybe you even had remote law school. I'm not sure if I'm missing the timing there, but Caroline, then you sort of were impacted by some of the recent changes as well that have happened with hiring timelines and what that all looks like. And so for our listeners, obviously, thankfully, we're not in the same exact setting, but I would say that for a lot of folks, things have changed and things are up in the air. And some of these early career folks listening today might really benefit from both of y'all's wisdom on how to navigate, how to have the resiliency that you're talking about, Caroline, when you are facing a job market that's either unprecedented, your job that you thought you might have might not exist anymore. And how can you leverage your skills that you do have to get yourself in the door?
SPEAKER_00: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 or your career. Um, in fact, I'm still, even as a second year, I am still, you know, I get, I get work that, that is another kind of wrinkle on that. I might want to add that to my, to my repertoire. Um, I might not, I might be like, 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 my eyes and ears open about just opportunities that might be available, you know, down the road or right now. So I think, one, it's like, you know, I mean, if you're very committed, if you know yourself, you know yourself better than anybody. If you're like, you know, I'm going 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, in when you face these types of challenges, really, to kind of be willing to let it take you where it takes you. And you're capable of tackling that. I mean, sure, the self-doubt will creep in because the timing doesn't happen the way you thought it was going to happen. Like, I think I would imagine that OCI, I mean, OCI was in my year was... you know, COVID fiasco, frankly. I would imagine OCI, like, don't be discouraged if OCI is not where you land your forever home. That's a great opportunity, but I actually didn't get my position through OCI. And, you know, it was, again, just like not letting that, what could be perceived as a setback, you know, that you just reach out to folks. That was one of the best advice I can give. in terms of getting a job, but also once you get into the firm, just establishing relationships and visibility with people that it's trial and error a little bit. You're like, this person's great to work with. I like their work and that kind of thing. And you only do that by reaching out to people and just picking their brains. And it's not like, it's not a transaction. It's not, yeah, it's not like, oh, well, like you give me this because I'm only self-interested. It's truly just like kind of that initiative that, but you're have to have kind of a certain degree of confidence in yourself like and that that i think we all have to remind ourselves of frequently because we're all new to it. I mean, I know that it seems like I come into this with so much experience and I got to witness, you know, an expert navigate all of this. But, you know, but in many ways, you know, I'm brand new to it. My mom actually never worked at a firm. So that's she interacted with firms, obviously, you know, extensively. But that's not, you know, a guidance that she can give me like from personal experience. And so there's still all of that. That's like, you know, you're you're You made it here for a reason. You should have some confidence. Someone looked at you and saw your potential and to kind of own that. Yeah, stay humble. But also, you know, you got yourself there with your hard work and diligence and persistence and things like that. So I think it's a lot of those soft, those kind of soft skills, because. The technical stuff of law is not, like nobody expects you to know all of the technical stuff when you walk in the door. They just expect you to control these controllables, you know, effort and attitude as it were.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, love that. Tania, on resiliency and effort and attitude, I feel like you embody that so well in your journey, not even before you were a health lawyer, while you were trying to get licensed.
SPEAKER_03:You
SPEAKER_02:had a lot happening. Oh my gosh. No, I honestly have to echo everything Caroline just said because Because I know as lawyers, we are risk averse and we want to plan everything out A to B and we want to account for everything and you just can't do that. So yeah, I graduated law school 2020. I had it all planned out. I was going to have my baby. I was going to take the bar and then have my baby, have some time off. And all of that went out the window. I ended up taking the bar online at Baker Donaldson with a six week old. And it was a scary time because I know some people were like losing their job offers or like Caroline said, they might have been getting, you know, pushed back, you And so it's really just like Caroline said, you gotta stay open. Anytime something like this comes your way, it's an opportunity for you to shape what you want that narrative to be. And I could have said, oh, this isn't gonna work. It's gonna be too hard. I just need to defer to the next bar, blah, blah, blah. But like Caroline said, we did hard work to get through college, to law school, through law school. And so it's just a matter of, reminding yourself like, oh, I can do hard things. And this may be something I haven't faced before, but I do have something to contribute and I can overcome things. And so the more you do that as well, you get more confident in yourself that you can do it again. And so I, again, I just agree with everything Caroline said. And again, about shaping that narrative, like Allie said, it was all over the internet that I took the bar with the baby with the benefit of a smart bassinet. And now our firm is offering that bassinet as a parental leave benefit. And so I just kind of like use my experiences to try to, you know, help other people and get them through a tough time. And so, yeah, I love hearing about, you know, other people navigating some of this as well, because it just lets people know you don't have to do a 1L summer and then repeat there. So there are a lot of different pathways to get to where we are. And again, it's just up to you to kind of shape what your story is going to look like. So definitely just be proactive and open. But it is scary. I will acknowledge that. But...
SPEAKER_05:I appreciate both of you being so candid about your experiences. I remain convinced that your generation is so gritty and so resilient because precisely of all these things that have happened and all the things and all the changes that keep happening in the world. And so it's really exciting. And I love that both of you are folks who are taking those experiences and helping mentor others and change things for others so that the next batch of folks who has to face those challenges has it maybe a little bit easier or at least has some guidance to navigate it. Okay, I think most folks who are listening to this podcast probably want to hear about what does a typical day look like for you as an early career associate in 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 us off?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I will start this off. For us, at least at Baker, our young associates will typically do kind of a mixed bag of transactional and regulatory work. before they start to kind of declare their major, as I call it. I'm someone that still does a decent mix of transactional and regulatory work. So I'll just use today as an example. I am running diligence on a hospital acquisition. And so I'm interacting with different, like Caroline said, healthcare is a ton of things. So I'm interacting with healthcare regulatory partners, benefits council, all these different people to pull together diligence review for this hospital deal And then I have a niche area of my practice related to organ donation. And so that's a really specific area that I get to work on where I might be, you know, navigating different regulatory issues that they face or different regulatory filings that they have to do. But my, so to answer your question of whether there's a typical day, there's not really. My husband is a teacher. And so he's like, okay, I go from period one to period two at this time. And he doesn't, gets very stressed about the fact that I'll say, oh, someone just dropped a call on my calendar for 30 minutes from now. And he's like, how do you live this way? But I think part of that spontaneous aspect is what keeps this interesting and on your toes. Again, the law is always changing. Clients will change the facts. And so some of that adaptability that we've been talking about in life is applicable to our work as well. I'm on a couple of mergers where they have just changed what they're trying to do like three times. And I'm like, okay, so before I send you like, okay, before I send you the agreement for a third time, please confirm this is what we're doing and that this is the timeline we're working with. And so again, it's just a lot of different things like that, but I do appreciate that healthcare is still very broad. So even if you've kind of narrowed down an industry there's still so much out there that you can get your hands on. And at Baker, we definitely have that wide open for associates to dip their hands in. In our corporate group as well, again, being in Nashville, they all touch healthcare deals every day as well. So even if you're someone that maybe doesn't wanna focus specifically on healthcare and you wanna do corporate, there's still a benefit to getting some background and some insight into different industries, such as healthcare, just so you understand clients' business when doing deals or something for them. So yeah, lots of different things might happen in a day for me, but lots of calls, lots of reviewing contracts, lots of drafting policies, just a lot of different things.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I love it. Caroline, what about you? What does your day look like as a second year student?
SPEAKER_00: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 is particularly entrepreneurial. You can kind of craft a practice, even as a second year, that is pretty your own. I mean, you're always going to do stuff that comes across your desk, not that you sought, per se. But you can start to really craft that. And so as of today, I'm working on– so I actually do sit quite– do a lot of pure corporate work in addition to– it's corporate work. it's corporate in the sense that it's actually some security stuff, some governance stuff, things like that, that are to serve healthcare clients, but also more of that hybrid regulatory transactional, like that Tania mentioned, noted um and so like as of today i'm on several deals um that are distressed transactions um which again speaks to the diversity that you can do in your in a healthcare practice um because there are i mean the margins on a lot of these a lot of these health care providers are not necessarily that gargantuan they're you know they are no margin no mission but still um you know and so they are they're they're they struggle some of these so i um have been working on several transactions that are out of foreclosure, where they bundle these properties, these assisted living facilities, independent living facilities, et cetera, and sell them together when the previous operators weren't able to operate them in a way that was profitable. So I've been working on those deals, which includes just drafting those agreements, corresponding with the client in on those, trying to make sure that all the legal descriptions are tracked down, like all of that kind of stuff, because they're kind of combined real estate and operations sales. And then switch gears to drafting a consent for a simple agreement for future equity, which is a lot of these life sciences clients, especially when they're first getting started, it's very expensive, they need money. And so they go and get these from investors. And so it's a lot of that kind of governance work that's very detail-oriented have to go back and read those bylaws that everybody learned about back at the very beginning of law school, those types of things. So yeah, and then obviously just emails and calls and trying to field all of those types of things in terms of, and I do have to sometimes find a little time to block off undistracted time for that. But yeah, there's not really for drafting and just the deep thinking, but yeah, so there's not really a, a standard day, but that's actually part of the thing that's so attractive about working in a practice that's more of an industry focus, unlike something that might be, I know everything about this particular statute and I will litigate the heck out of it for the rest of my career. But you have this diversity of like, if you wanna do distressed transactions, there's opportunity for that. If you wanna do life sciences, early stage investing, you can 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 really deep into reimbursement regulatory, you can do that.
SPEAKER_05:There really is a lot of breadth to it. And I think the large firms, you know, I think that that is maybe the best thing or one of the best things of being at a large firm, especially, you know, both of y'all are in practices that have very robust healthcare offerings. And so you really do get to dip your toes on, you know, into everything And I think that that is something that really serves early career folks really well. And to your point, Caroline, I think it, People are surprised when large firm lawyers mention the entrepreneurial nature of a lot of our practices. But I would say that because there is such a breadth and depth to everything that's available at the firm, you kind of get to decide, you know, right, you're an adventurer and really explore and develop those niches as you're interested, which I think makes it a really fun and dynamic practice. I don't know if we always think it's fun, but I think overall it comes out in the wash as something that's really fun and interesting. So obviously, this is an AHLA-sponsored podcast, so we'd be remiss to not chat about how you guys got involved with AHLA, what it has meant for your career, some highlights that you might have had. I know both of you have attended different conferences at AHLA and educational programs that AHLA has hosted, so I would love to learn a little bit more about why y'all chose to get involved and what that's looked like for you. Antonia, you can kick us off.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I can jump in. If I'm not mistaken, I might have even started following AHLA as a law student. I believe that. Yeah. And I like so I transactions is one of the conferences that is typically in Nashville. And so it's very accessible to me and very encouraged by our firm that we participate. But it's always just such good content. AHLA has really good resources. And similar to the podcast we're doing now, there are opportunities for young lawyers to start to build a name for themselves. So I've done a couple articles with AHLA that have just kind of helped me get some experience on marketing and business 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 get to some of the conferences, we will have one of our associates kind of report out and share documents or PowerPoints that were spoken on at the conference. But So there's all of that. There's great substantive resources, great opportunities for young lawyers. And it's also a really good way to meet other people. I know there are people I met at my very first transactions conference that I still keep in touch with now. And I think that's really cool. And you look forward to seeing each other every time and just start to build that community, which was something that has been a priority for me ever primarily because my first year was all remote everything. I've been really trying to take advantage of things where I can to get out there and travel some just because I didn't have that opportunity that first year because of COVID. And so I don't know if other people, my years sort of feel a little behind, but to the extent I can get in there and go to some more AHLA events, that's definitely something high on my radar. And also that the firm definitely supports Just because it's always great content, great community, and things like that. So that's my two cents. But yeah, AHLA has just been ingrained in my workflow from the very beginning. It was like a never question that I would get involved with it. I'm just happy to continue doing things like this and finding different ways to, because like we said, the firm is Choose Your Own Adventure. AHLA is also Choose Your Own Adventure. So you can go to different conferences. You can write, you can speak, you can, there's all these different things that you can kind of get plugged in.
SPEAKER_05:Caroline, how did you? I agree with that.
SPEAKER_00:There's all of the above, you know, retweet. So, yeah, I actually got involved 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 Notre Dame reunion at all the different HLA conferences. So I always I mean, I'm always prioritize the AHLA Transactions Conference, especially. Selfishly, it's also a way for me to get
SPEAKER_04:open.
SPEAKER_00: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 macro environment was a lot of baby HSRs. And this year with the different kind of regime change or whatever, it's a lot of like antitrust. So it's very, it was very timely, you know, and you get, and you get, and it's a range. It's not just, if you are young and all of this and not as fluent in the language, as it were. then there's something for you. If you have something that's... Like my mom, we went to this conference together. Well, not together, but we did, you know, and she has... We hung out at the conference. And she gets to see, you know, things that are really timely for her who is beyond fluent in the language. And I am still, you know, learning a lot of this stuff and some of the more sophisticated structures and things like that, that she's going to go and see that. But if you, or if you're somewhere in between, there's something you can take out of all of these speakers. They're so knowledgeable. It's a great way to get to know people and reconnect with people. I mean, I reconnected with Ali at this conference. But also, you just meet new people that are, you know, I mean, the last conference I got invited to like a little dinner just like on a whim from one of the booth people because we got to talking and it was like two degrees of separation of how we knew, you name it. And so that kind of organic stuff that just takes place. And so I really encourage people, if you have any interest in health care law, in whatever capacity, to just explore AHLA early in your law school career or any time thereafter. Because the resources are fantastic. The publications are fantastic. They're very useful. I mean, when I first started, one of the things that a fellow health care associate who started in regulatory and transitioned to transactional, but he really liked that. He was like, I really got a command of the regulatory before I moved into the transactional. And one of the things that he recommended, he was like, take that fundamentals book and read it. He said, because nobody's doing that. Nobody's reading that cover to cover as just like an introduction to this. And one, you get so much information. And two, you get to sort of like, what of this stuff is interesting to you? And so I would relay that to a new person that might be interested in it, is one, just plug into it and just like, by osmosis, kind of find your people, find your, the resources that are helpful for you. And then, I mean, if you really are like, just completely not, don't know if healthcare is for you, I don't know if you want to read the
SPEAKER_06:fundamentals,
SPEAKER_00:but if you're, you know, if you're early on and you're like, you know, I think this is, this intrigues me. I think I want to, then, then I would, I would take that as well, because it is, it is a way to kind of just quickly absorb information and are really, really, and it's, and it's updated and they're, and they're really good information. I mean, also you can just read it as you come across issues. That's another way to do it. Like, I know they have like various surveys and, you know, you just like when you're working on something and it's a specific question, you tend to like just be so zeroed in on that. It's like, oh, maybe just read a little bit more. paragraph before, paragraph after, or this whole section in this, you know, the California corporate practice in medicine, you know, or
SPEAKER_04:whatever section. All of us live by that 50 state corporate practice of medicine. It's a popular one. I
SPEAKER_03:would be disbarred without that book. I would not make it without that book.
SPEAKER_05:I'm looking over here directly in my line of sight. I have all those and I will make a plug for it. There is the AHI Fundamentals of Health Law book, which back in my day, that one did not exist. So now it's a handy book instead of sort of the fundamentals binder, though I still print out the fundamentals binder anytime I get to attend fundamentals. But Fundamentals of Health Law for our listeners is a conference that we have that really is geared more towards the early career folks. And it's kind of what it sounds like. You go and you get an intro to all all things healthcare, but I have gone even as, you know, a slightly more seasoned lawyer and I still learn a lot of things. It's so helpful. And then transactions, which you both mentioned is a really popular one. It's here in Nashville and folks who do transactional work for healthcare clients gather and the content is so good. I feel like everyone was at the tax training during this last conference, but HLA also has an acronym book. And I know we did a podcast episode with the author and that is kind of what it sounds like. It demystifies the alphabet soup of health law acronyms, which we love our acronyms. of this episode where we share about 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't all have the same sort of core library accessible to us of all those AHLA products. And oftentimes, if for some reason your firm doesn't have one, you can order it and it's something that the firm wants to get for you. So we would encourage you, if you are a listener who is at a large law firm, please don't hesitate to ask for those AHLA resources. They're so great. And chances are that your library probably actually has them available for you. Okay. The other thing that we get a lot of questions about on Law Firm Life is firm culture and work-life balance, which I think that some folks who have not experienced Law Firm Life can be a little bit spooked by sort of this thought of, you know, big firm, lots of people. What have your experiences been like working at large law firms? And what do you think really folks, what would you encourage folks to look for as far as like finding I think for me, like you said,
SPEAKER_02:you know, challenging healthcare practice was kind of a given for all the Nashville firms. And so I had to look beyond that. And I had just recently gotten married when I was doing my summer associate positions. And so I was kind of thinking through, okay, is this a firm that has a lot of parents? And particularly in our healthcare group, I wanted to know, like, are there a lot of parents in this group? Like, is it possible and feasible to, you you know, to do this work and have a family. And also just looking at what does the firm kind of offer to support parents? Like, for example, we offer like breast milk shipping if I have to travel for work and we have like emergency childcare reimbursement and different things like that that just make it possible to be able to have a family and still do this work. Something to also be asking about and thinking about are billable outlays. requirements some firms are not as strict about it some are like you have to hit this number so those are just some things you want to think about because that will kind of shape you know the culture and how things operate for me it it took me a little bit of time to like get my head around okay I need to do x number of hours but what does that break down to per month per week per day thinking because this is a very unique job in the sense that I could be at work you know, all day, I might be there eight hours and five of those were billable or four of those were billable. And so I'm like, well, I did everything you told me to do, but my hours are bad. It's like, so it's very challenging to like get over that hump because it took me a while to be like, well, I'm doing everything they said and I'm going to the meetings and I'm writing the articles, but you still have to do the billable hours. So just kind of thinking through What does that look like? And I have found that it's very helpful to plan out those days that I know are going to be a two-hour, three-hour billable day. Or even if I have vacation, go ahead and just write a zero for that week and calculate around it. because you're not going to just fall into the goal accidentally. Yeah, you're not going to fall into it. And you don't want to be like me pretty much a couple of years in a row where I'm at the end of the fiscal year scrambling to fit it all in. So my recommendation is definitely to ask some of those questions about what the requirements are. I know we also have a non-billable expectation. And so doing things like this is encouraged and monitored. you know, just getting a sense for the firm's priorities and making sure they align with your own because you're, the firms are interviewing you, but you're also interviewing them. And so you have choices and want to have choices about where to go. And so looking for some of those questions, I also asked a little bit about what programs do you offer for minorities and women? And just some of those things just really shape what the environment is like. If I ask someone, this may be a white man, and if he can't tell me anything about the firm's women's initiative, then or diversity efforts, then that is maybe a sign that it's not a firm-wide priority. And so just asking some of those questions 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, red flag. Red flag, I don't like it. So a lot of that, and I have been happy that you know, I was not in any sort of bait and switch. So I was happy to find that to the extent you can, Baker is a really good environment for work-life balance. But again, I have kids. And so that is often out the window at my own place. But anyway,
SPEAKER_05:yeah. No, I totally get what you mean. Caroline, how about you? What would you say to folks who might be a little spooked by the prospect of joining a large law firm? How can you... how both that firm culture, but also how can you manage that work-life balance from the early days? I feel like you're probably in the thick of establishing what that looks like for you as a younger associate.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's definitely one of those things that you kind of have to, at least once you start. So the evaluative process of the firm itself, of course, it's important to understand billable hour requirements and understanding that there's sometimes there's unspoken billable hour requirements at certain firms. And to see kind of what's the tone about transparency, that's one of the ways. And that might not be in your interview, but you could just talk to people. Yeah, people from your undergrad or law school that had landed there or people that you otherwise know that might give you sort of some candid information about what it's like there That's not just a sales pitch, like the bait and switch part, because that is something to kind of keep your eyes and ears open for. I know there's a tendency to be like, 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 look and see, I mean, the best thing that you can probably do is just really have some, to the extent you have, you know, over the last few years, establish like some sense of clarity around what your values are. You know, that's kind of look for those and look for proxies for those values. Like I went to a happy hour after work with a new prospective, like internal client, like he, you know, he might, he has some, work, corporate work, things like that, where he might, and it's just like a very candid, you know, normal conversation. We're not talking too much about work. It's not, it's, you know, we're both evaluating each other a little bit, you know. And, you know, but you just listen for that, you know, listen for the values, the proxies for values. Like, you know, he was talking about how he, he was like a seventh year associate at a very, very large, prominent, you know, like white shoe law firm. And he was like, my wife, I was in the grocery store and she hadn't seen me for a week and she was, you know, trying to juggle all these children and he has to take a call because he's on, he's on a deal and she'd had enough, you know? Um, and he said, you know, just in passing, he was like, well, my family is more important than my job. So I decided to figure out what was a better fit, you know, and he, and he, and he found something that worked for him. Um, But it's those kind of subtle, just in passing type of things that people say when you get to know them to determine if this is one, the right firm for you, but also is this person the right person to work with? Because one of the advice that I got when I was in high school, actually, that I think is transferable to this environment is, and it was actually to choose a small school versus a large school. And the advice was, you can make a big school small, but you can't make a small school big. And I think that, and I didn't grasp all of that, the meaning of all of that when I was, you know, 17, you know, whatever. But even at a large law firm, you know, there's also like, what team are you going to be working on? Who are those people? Because they will influence your life and your career trajectory, certainly, but your life in the meantime, a lot more than some, you know, the collective 3000 people or whatever that are involved, however large your law firm is. And so it's important to, yes, understand those kind of the top-down pressures from the administration, 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 you would 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, when you look up the chain, is that something that you would want for yourself? Because you do kind of eventually start to establish like your cadence kind of aligns with their cadence and that kind of thing. And so if that's not, if there's not an alignment, if they have a life that you're like on paper, that looks really great, but it just doesn't really align with my, with my life, you know, with my, with my, um, with my values that I've established or whatever, then I think that's really important. But it starts with some degree of clarity on what those values are for you to listen to what those proxies for those values are. Because you often cannot just, you know, you can't be that forward about it. You can be bold. I encourage people
SPEAKER_05:to be bold. But you might not get the answer. You might not get an honest answer. So I do think that your suggestion of proxies, which I think Danielle also sort of spoke of. Yes. Okay. Well, as we start to wrap up your time, I would love to know if you you guys could go back and tell your undergrad selves one piece of advice. It doesn't necessarily have to be around health law, but just generally think about where you are today. If you could go back to them and let them know that things worked out well and to keep one piece of advice in mind, what would you guys say to yourselves? Tania, do you want to kick us off?
SPEAKER_02:I think it would have to kind of go back to something we said earlier, which was like, don't get too caught up in your ABCD plan, having those values, like Caroline said, can guide kind of where you're headed. And that being said, it's okay if it doesn't look exactly how you thought it would look. I did not expect to take the bar in a room by myself at a firm. I did not expect to have my offer delayed by a few months. All these different things were not how I envisioned them. I also didn't even envision being a lawyer at first. And so just kind of trusting that those values and the hard work that we put in will kind of get you where you need to be because otherwise you'll stress yourself out getting hung up on timing and expectations and different things like that that that don't have to be the focus the focus is um the success that you're you're crafting for yourself every day um and that that's definitely something that I I have struggled with and struggle with still so I'm talking to myself as much as anyone um but yeah just staying flexible like we said at the beginning um will will make you comfortable with where you are and where you're headed
SPEAKER_05:I love that, thank you. Caroline, what would you tell undergrad Caroline
SPEAKER_00:I think I would pose a question to Caroline. I think it would be, yeah, I would say, because I think one of the biggest things that I, that is like speaking to the values earlier, is really kind of listening to yourself. Because this profession and, you know, in law school and all these things, there's a track and you think you have to follow it. And there's a lot of noise. People tell you that you have to do 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 ones of those are for you and which ones are not for you if you don't really kind of have a core understanding of what you want and that type of thing, and not making decisions purely off of fear. And so I think that's critical. And so the question that I would ask myself probably, or the first thing that comes to mind is, you know, what would you do if you knew it was all going to be okay?
SPEAKER_04:I love that. I feel like we all need to hear that today.
SPEAKER_00:Because it frees you up to really kind of be bold where you should be bold and make those decisions that align your life with what you want it to be. And that's a very individual exercise. Unfortunately, I can't get on here and be like, this is what everybody should do because everybody's values are different. Their priors are different. They come to the table with different things, hopes, dreams, fears, et cetera. But that's That's what I would ask myself. And I think that also aligns well with what Tenia was saying. It provides you with additional flexibility. There's no one prescribed successful path in this, in health law, in law generally. If you get on a track and you're like, this is not the track for me, get off the track. Even if some, even if all these people that are at high up and they're telling you, you know, this is catastrophic. This is, you have to do it this way because this is how we did it 20 years ago. And there's a track and you have to follow it. If you don't like the track, get off the track. You know, but you can't you can'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 and your thoughts inside in your in your home, you know, without the noise of outside influence all the time.
SPEAKER_05:Asking yourself that question is very healthy. Well, how can listeners connect with you guys or learn more about your work?
SPEAKER_02:Go for it. I mean, I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me usually liking Allie's post. So if you just look at her,
SPEAKER_06:look
SPEAKER_02:at her recents and you'll find me, Tania Clayton, on LinkedIn. I like to share kind of where I'm headed and what I'm up to on there, including conferences like transactions.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. And Caroline, I feel like similarly with you, I assume. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:well.
SPEAKER_00:Likewise, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm Caroline K. Abbott. And, you know, and obviously on the firm website, you can look me up if you wish.
SPEAKER_06:You're going the formal route,
SPEAKER_00:but always available and accessible on LinkedIn. Likewise, you know, interacting with... We've interacted with like and Ali's posts, all the LinkedIn influencers these days, legal influencers. So yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn.
SPEAKER_05:It's a good community out there. Well, thank you so much to you and Caroline for sharing your stories and your wisdom with our listeners today. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in today. If you're an early career health professional, we'd love to connect with you and share more about the volunteer and networking opportunities that are available to early career professionals through AHLA. We'll see you all next time.
SPEAKER_01:If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to AHLA's Speaking of Health Law wherever you get your podcasts. For more information about AHLA and the educational resources available to the health law community, visit AmericanHealthLaw.org. And stay updated on breaking healthcare industry news from the major media outlets with AHLA's Health Law Daily Podcast, exclusively for AHLA Premium members. To subscribe and add this private podcast feed to your podcast app, go to AmericanHealthLaw.org slash Daily Podcast. you