Hospital Counsel Forum

[chewy]

Can anyone give any information on working on the hospital side of mal practice law as the in house consel for a hospital or network of hospitals

[belligerentfuture]

my knowledge is super limited, but nobody has responded so here goes...

1) i know that some hospitals and networks (including large ones) farm their med-mal out to large firms.
2) i also know that some hospitals do have in house counsel that handles med-mal related work, although the stuff that i have heard about was not actual litigation, but more like handling potential cases/settling. my vague impression is that hospital counsel is a combo of insurance & employment & non-profit law with some handling of initial med-mal stuff.

that being said, my knowledge is anecdotal at best.

hope someone more knowledgable answers

[Justathought]

I'm a 0L, but I do have one tidbit I can offer, based on first hand knowledge.

I'm familiar with some higher ups in a very prestigious private NYC hospital. They have a sizable amount of attorneys working in house, and most of them come from Proskauer - the firm which handles their outsourced affairs.

I bet the route of going biglaw to in house at a major hospital is very similar to the biglaw to corporate in house model.

Again, 0L. Take it with a grain of salt. At least in this instance though, it seems to be the case.

[gwuorbust]

rising 2L here. I've not heard much on this. I know there was recently a thread on this topic, but I just skimmed it.

My thought is that most hospitals probably farm out most of their work and maybe have 1 or 2 in-house counsel - maybe more depending on the size. I imagine that they will almost assuredly farm out litigation.

That said, I think in many of these situations it is a chicken-and-the-egg kind of deal. Think about it - hospitals generally are not known as a hiring center for summer associates, so students don't apply. When students don't apply, no summer associates are hired. Now, they could make a post and hire some students..but because most hospitals have never experienced having an SA, most don't make posts either. BUT: my thought is that if you apply to enough places, some might interview you just because having a SA is an intriguing idea. You would basically be creating your own position. There is nothing wrong with that. I think it might be possible, though extremely difficult. Therefore, you should not bank on it.

[tww909]

i can speak a little bit to my mother's experience as she's in-house now at a hospital/clinic network in my medium sized (150,000 people) home town.

the hospital she works for used to go to one of the largest firms in the area for all of their legal work. she worked at that firm, and ended up working pretty closely with the hospital. a few years down the line they decided to hire an in-house, and she got tapped for that gig.

some of her work is malpractice related, however all the actual litigation is done by outside counsel. her day to day work touches on a whole bunch of areas of the law including labor/employment, contracts, regulatory compliance, as well as more business type stuff as a part of hospital management.

i am sure that the character of the work she does would be different if someone was in-house for a larger hospital system, particularly if litigation was also handled in house, not to mention that her undergraduate degree and previous work experience is in health care administration, so the management portion of her job is becoming an increasing part of what she does. futhermore, the fact that this is a relatively small area also has an effect.

also i can tell you that she has hired summer law clerks in the past, however it is not an every year type of thing. i do know that one of them went on to get a relatively prestigious job in health law at a mid-sized/big firm in a secondary market, in part on the strength of her recommendation. so if you're super interested in this area and have the type of background to market yourself, it wouldn't hurt you to look up if they have an in house counsel and send them a cover letter/resume.

but anyway, hope it helps.