Tell me about your regular practice area: Where do you practice and what do you do? What do you love most about your job?
An antitrust and healthcare attorney at Nelson Mullins, I am privileged to partner with clients in accomplishing their goals as they navigate complex regulatory requirements.
In my antitrust practice, I advise clients on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and Hart–Scott–Rodino premerger notification filings and assist with government investigations and divestitures. My antitrust experience covers a variety of industries with a particular focus on healthcare antitrust matters.
In my healthcare practice, I work with healthcare systems, surgical centers, physician groups, long–term care facilities, hospices, and entities engaged in the clinical research. I routinely counsel healthcare clients on licensure and certification, enrollment and reimbursement, accreditation, certificate of need, regulatory and compliance issues, and medical staff matters. I am the president-elect of the North Carolina Society of Health Care Attorneys.
I also assist biosciences clients with compliance matters related to human subject protection as well as sponsor, site and investigator obligations and Institutional Review Board responsibilities. I prepare and negotiate clinical trial agreements, confidentiality agreements, investigator–initiated study agreements, material transfer agreements, and grant funding agreements.
I love that I get to help clients find ways to meet their objectives and, in doing that, get to be a small part of the important work they do. I am grateful that getting to solve problems and think creatively is my job.
What is your favorite pro bono experience?
I have served as a guardian ad litem appellate attorney advocate since graduating from law school. As a parent of two children, I always feel honored to give a voice to abused, neglected, and dependent children and to help them get closer to having the childhood they and all children deserve. This is especially true when my clients have experienced horrific abuse or neglect at a young age, and the court process clears the way for them to have a loving, stable home.
Tell me about your experience with Pro Bono Resource Center projects.
I have enjoyed getting to do the projects through my firm. It is helpful to have discrete projects available where I can make a meaningful difference for unrepresented people in our community.
How has pro bono volunteerism enriched your career?
I have benefited from exposure to other perspectives and from being able get additional experience (whether in court, appeals, discovery, or advising clients). This was especially true when I was a young associate. Early in my career, pro bono provided me with professional development opportunities I would not have had otherwise.
Of what moment(s) from your pro bono work are you proudest?
I have been most proud when I have worked with clients who have felt ignored or mistreated and the matter was one of the first times when they felt they had a voice that was heard.
What advice would you give to attorneys who have not yet provided any pro bono service?
Getting to practice law is a tremendous gift. As my boss at my first job out of college, Don Baker, used to say, to whom much is given, much is expected. It is easy to get involved in pro bono, even with discrete, small projects, and every project I have done has helped me gain a new perspective or skill or otherwise enriched my legal skills.