How to Survive… Small and Regional Law Firms

Tyler Dysart, Associate, King & Spalding LLP, speaks with Kennedy Bunch, Attorney, Hall Render Killian Health & Lyman PC, Mitchell Surface, Associate, Maynard Nexsen PC, and Parker Zopp, Associate, Jackson Kelly PLLC, about how to survive and thrive at small and regional law firms. They discuss how their pre-law school experiences influenced their decision to pursue careers in health law, how they acquired the skills needed for their specific practices, and how litigation and regulatory/transactional practices differ. They also share how new associates can effectively manage new projects and expectations from senior colleagues, strategies around billable hours, and the biggest perks of working for a small/regional law firm. From AHLA’s Early Career Professionals Council.

Watch this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fELGfQ2lDQI

Watch previous episodes of the “How to Survive…” series:

Large Law Firms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sUU7vYUG4M 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

This episode of AHLA's Speaking of Health Law is brought to you by AHLA members and donors like you. For more information, visit AmericanHealth Law.org.

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Hello and welcome to another edition of AHLA's Speaking of Health Law podcast. The Early Career Professionals Council is excited to present another episode of the How to Survive series. The series is meant to provide advice for surviving and thriving in various practice environments for those who may be interested in entering into healthcare practice. The series so far has been focused on various settings, including uh law firm settings, uh, in-house settings, uh, and governmental roles. Uh my name is Tyler Dysart. I'm on the programming committee for the uh Early Career Professionals Council, um, and I'm going to be moderating today's episode. Uh I'm an associate at uh King Spaulding and was actually a panelist on the prior episode of the series, where we talked through the large law firm practice environment setting. Um, and today's episode in particular now is going to be focused on uh a small firm setting. And so you know there's no uh great definition for um what that might be, but you might hear the term in a regional or boutique firm, uh, something uh along those lines. Uh and today I'm joined by a great panel panel today. Um Kennedy Bunch, who is an attorney at Hall Render, Mitch Surface, who's an associate at uh Maynard Nixon, and Parker Zop, who is an associate at Jackson Kelly. Um and I'm gonna start with an opening question to the panelists here to ask you to uh describe your practice and uh sort of what drew you into uh health law in in this particular practice setting to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Thank you for having us, Tyler. Appreciate it. Um like Tyler said, my name is Kennedy Bunch. I work at Hall Render as an associate in the litigation group. Uh I worked as a pharmacy technician for several years, beginning in high school. Thought that I was gonna be a pharmacist. I loved the aspects of healthcare and getting to work with patients and learn about medicine. Um, but I thought that my skill set would be better served in a different environment. And so I switched careers to pursue a legal career specifically in healthcare. So I started after law school in medical malpractice defense, and now I do more of the business aspects of healthcare litigation. Uh my practice is different every day, but I really enjoy it, and Hall Render is a great place to serve great clients.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Yeah, I'll jump in next. Uh thanks for the intro, Tyler, and thanks for having us on. Um I'm Mitch Surface, I'm uh at Maynard Nixon in in Birmingham, Alabama. Um, and uh represent uh clients in the healthcare regulatory compliance space. Um I started out uh thinking I was going to um go back into personal injury because I was a paralegal uh for about you know four or five years before law school and uh did personal injury, personal injury work um on the medical malpractice side and and was very interested in that. And and then in law school, I I clerked for a firm that uh did medical uh malpractice defense and and became very interested on the other side of things and um that uh kind of turned into getting a uh LLM and health law and and policy and um kind of turned into the regulatory compliance role that I'm in now. Um and it's uh fun to kind of help uh regional hospitals throughout the Southeast uh you know kind of prevent litigation and prevent those issues. So um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

I guess I'll go next. Uh thank you all for having me here today, um, much like the other two panelists. Um, you know, I also had a little bit of experience with uh healthcare before going to law school and then during my time in law school. Um, both of my uh parents are both in the healthcare industry and being where I am, I'm in West Virginia, uh specifically Charleston, West Virginia, at Jackson Kelly. Uh Jackson Kelly's corporate headquarters is here in Charleston. Um, given the economy of West Virginia has kind of been trending more towards uh having increases in in demand for healthcare because of our population. And so it's a really good place to be, especially for younger associates. Um uh in law school, I didn't really have uh uh you know healthcare on the mind. Um, I worked prior to out law school, I actually worked for a general practitioner. I was a legal assistant. We did everything from public defense, uh civil litigation, landlord tenant disputes, you know, the whole nine yards, you know. And so I was able to get an overview of things. And while I was in law school, I served as an extern um to a physician's group in uh Virginia when I was living in Williamsburg, Virginia. And so after uh law school, I ended up in in Jackson Kelly here. And um, there's a thriving healthcare practice here, uh, like I said, given given the uh the demographics of the state. And um, it's it's been great. I mean, I do different things every day. I mean, sometimes uh I'm advising on contracts for for large health systems. Sometimes we're setting up a practice for a counselor down the street. Um, sometimes we're defending, um, you know, we're issuing responses uh on behalf of clients to uh, you know, the Board of Medicine, Board of Osteopathy, that kind of thing. It just really looks different every day. And um I think healthcare healthcare law is a very exciting place to be these days.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

Awesome. Yeah, thank you all for the answers there. And one thing that sort of stuck out to me um hearing all those answers is that kind of each of you had some kind of uh connection to health law uh in the past, but it seems like it's different than or very different than what than what you're doing now. So I think Kennedy, you mentioned you you worked in some uh medical malpractice, Mitch in personal injury, um, and Parker, you know, you have your parents with some connection to health law. Uh how is your role now different than uh your prior uh experiences and in sort of different facets of health law?

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Uh I can I can start I've had several different roles during my time, you know, in law school and out of law school, uh with a primary objective of being able to advise clients holistically, um, specifically healthcare clients holistically. So, you know, if you have a regional hospital that you're advising or reviewing contracts for having a background in medical malpractice defense and understanding how Indiana's medical malpractice statute is hyper-specific for that regional hospital, or um, you know, in law school I worked for the Colorado and Indiana Attorney General's offices. So understanding how the medical board uh prosecutes um different health care providers for alleged violations of board rules, you know, having that background was really important to me. So at the end of the day, I could um have a better, fuller view to properly advise our clients. So my my role today is extremely different. Uh you know, like both Parker and Mitch said, our our days are very different every day, but that's why I love it. You know, every day is a new challenge, a new puzzle, and a new way to help people in the healthcare field so that so that they can focus better on providing medicine, ultimately.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Yeah, and I what I would add to that is uh before law school and even during law school, the uh opportunities that I had were very vastly different than you know what I do now. And you know, from personal injury to to the regulatory compliance side of things, it's you know, you go from reviewing medical records and trying to determine um whether or not there's some kind of breach or negligence or um you know something that that that went wrong versus you know, now I'm on on the front end trying to prevent those things from happening. So it's um, you know, like Kennedy was saying, it's something that, you know, is different every day. And I think that it's also what makes it interesting is that it is constantly changing too. So there's that aspect of having to keep up with the constant changes and what the federal government is saying and what the state governments are saying and their agencies and and those constantly evolving, you know, um nature of the work is is something that I I find very interesting. And um, you know, also I'll say it, you know, just be it based off what you know before law school or before you get into this profession, you know, might might have some kind of impact on it, but it it's something that you can learn as you go to, you know, you don't you don't have to know everything before you get into it. Um I you know, I like I said, I had very limited knowledge of especially in relation to you know the Stark and anti-kickback, and you know, you get into all the fraud and abuse, and um, you know, it's it's something that you can learn and then also you can evolve with, um, which which makes this area of law so exciting and and kind of fun to be in.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

And and maybe uh, you know, going off on a little bit of an aside there, but you sort of mentioned you know, you're still kind of learning and and kind of when you got into this practice setting or you had to learn things like Stark and anti-kickback, uh, I guess were those sort of things that you just learned naturally as you as you went along, or um, I guess how did you go about uh acquiring that more uh specific knowledge uh related to like to your practice today?

SPEAKER_02 10:19

Yeah, so um, you know, I so I was kind of thankful uh to have done the LLM in health law and policy. So I was able to get some basic, you know, foundational knowledge through through those courses. And then I also attended the fundamentals HLA fundamentals course, um, my first year as you know, a practicing attorney. Um, and that was very helpful, especially from a practical side of things, understanding kind of you know what those laws do and you know how to work through the analysis and uh you know all of the exceptions. And um so yeah, I think um initially it, you know, it's a it's a struggle. And and even when I go back to Stark issues today, you know, I have to refresh myself and remind myself, okay, where am I here? You know, what am I looking at? What are what exception am I looking at? You know, um, do we meet all of them? Um, if not, then, you know, and if it's anti-kickback, or you know, we can go to the advisory opinions. And and so those are things that you learn as you go along, I think, finding those resources, you know, you you kind of get a basic foundational knowledge uh from, you know, whether it's a CLE, HLA, or you know, some other kind of course. Um, and then you kind of just build off that as your practice evolves, I think is kind of how it's you know worked out for me.

SPEAKER_04 11:51

Yeah, I I and building on that, I think those are all directly applicable to me as well. I will say that the HLA Fundamentals Conference was, you know, really impactful for me trying to figure out what I was doing with Stark and AKS specifically. I had done a little bit when I was an extern in um in in law school. Um, but the in that role, you're more of uh, you know, as you're an in-house counsel type extern, um you're you're dealing with the the practical things of business. You're dealing with, you know, a little bit of employment law, you're dealing with some like fraud and abuse issues, you're dealing with just like general business considerations on one hand, you might uh have a lawsuit pending related to uh real estate on another. And so you're kind of just doing triage all day, which is kind of what we do anyway. Um, but here in in my current practice, I'm able to focus more more so on uh fraud and abuse issues. And I I think for me at least, I I didn't get um uh uh very free uh you know, I didn't really feel comfortable with it until I was able to dig into the actual commentary itself and review all those tools that 10 CLEs. And um I mean it's certainly not easy. So I mean, healthcare law especially is is not easy. There's just a litany of um, you know, uh of different organizations and acronyms that you have to become accustomed to. But I think just just with anything else, practice makes perfect. And I think that there's tons of people that that are familiar with this, and you just have to to say, you know, no when you're when you don't know something and go talk to people about it. I found that um a lot of the my colleagues in HLA have been more than willing to lend an ear uh to sound as kind of like to be a serve as a sounding board uh for issues that we've had here at our firm and just try to, you know, try to figure things out or like, hey, what's the best way to approach this? Or um do you have any resources that you're aware of that that can you know kind of help out what we're trying to do here at this firm?

SPEAKER_03 13:49

Yeah, and I can certainly echo how helpful something like uh HLA's fundamentals can be. Even you know, you don't have to leave it knowing every little bit of uh the materials that you that you saw there, or even knowing how Starker anti-Kickback works or how any of it operates, just knowing just knowing that like it exists and it's out there and kind of loving that to build a structure for healthcare knowledge in general, I think uh is hugely beneficial for uh anyone, even even just interested in healthcare law. It's um a really, really great conference. Um so one thing I was curious about, uh so I think Mitch, you mentioned that sometimes you can uh represent you know regional hospitals and and Parker, you mentioned I think that you represent you know large health systems or from or anything from a large health system to a provider, you know, just down the street. Uh I'm curious if uh your clients that you work with on a day-to-day basis are are they typically local, sort of in your area, um, and how that uh that works out.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

So a lot of ours are you know kind of spread throughout the the state of Alabama. Um so not, you know, there's some in in the city of Birmingham, but a majority of ours are kind of spread around the state. And so um it's a I know some of the shareholders and colleagues I work with, you know, um are able to uh travel and um and and meet with them a lot more often in person than we are here at the firm. Um but we still have you know what's cool with Zoom and and teams, you know, I I get to interface with with them, the, you know, the general counsels and uh the assistant general counsels in those offices, you know, at least on a weekly basis basis. So um despite us, you know, not being in the same in the same city, it's still uh we still have those opportunities to where we're able to to meet them and and interface with them and and assist them with their issues, um, which is cool. Being you know one of the only associates at my uh in my healthcare group at my firm um is is you know being on on those deals and in the in the you know rooms for those issues um is is something that you know is very uh interesting and and fun to be a part of.

SPEAKER_04 16:21

And yeah, and and I guess um, you know, when it comes to to Jackson Kelly here, uh it's like a regional law firm. That's why I'm here. And we we do have offices across Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, uh, Colorado. I'm I'm missing a few, but you know, each of those attorneys in those offices might have uh licenses to practice in the surrounding states. So that does produce quite a big footprint. But um, we know when it comes to our individual offices, uh, like I was saying earlier, we have we represent large health systems, but we also do a lot of you know individual local providers. So I I like uh I was out to lunch uh you know the other day. I ran into, I don't know how many clients I ran into, just down the street. Uh given, you know, Charleston's uh the largest city here in West Virginia, but in many respects is still very much a small town uh compared to a lot of the US. And so you know everyone. Um I you you see everyone at uh uh football games, uh, you know, restaurants, churches, you name it. You feel like you're really in ingrained in part of the community. But the the beauty of that being uh you know, in a regional law firm, you get to work on these big uh interesting projects um like uh with with large networks that have a large footprint. Um in fact, I was on, you know, I I think I split a couple of weeks ago. I had half my day was, you know, might have been counseling on a um, you know, a local uh a defense issue for a local provider. And then half my day was uh dealing with uh a closing that was happening halfway around the world and you know in a different time zone. And so I think it's cool to have that kind of dichotomy. It keeps you on your toes, um, it keeps you um really uh, you know, in in the like you have to be really uh abreast of all the issues that are coming down because you have a lot of sophisticated uh clients from a business perspective, but then you also need to have the interpersonal wherewithal to develop relationships and and cultivate um your your business persona here in the community as well.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Yep, uh Hall render similar to to Parker, uh we serve clients that are large health as health systems to you know nurses uh in front of the nursing board in any state. Uh so we don't have clients in all 50 states, but we're close. Um so we really do have a national practice and uh it we just have such a great opportunity. We're in the Indian I'm in the Indianapolis office, such a great opportunity um to serve clients across the nation.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

And Kenny, do you do you find that uh when um in litigation when you're representing uh clients, or they it just it kind of almost doesn't matter that you're in Indianapolis, they're wherever the client is, it it it's sort of you're you're able to uh represent them regardless of how far away they are.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Yeah, absolutely. And the the great part about my job specifically, uh litigation is sort of the um the smaller group, uh a large majority of Paul Render does, you know, compliance regulatory transactions. And so uh we really get to lean on our deep bench of experts. I'm not necessarily expected to be an expert in Stark and in a kickback, but you know, Steve Pratt down the hallway uh can give me as much counsel as I could as possibly need on on Stark and Nana kickback. And so um having that allows us to really provide the best service to our clients.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

Oh and that kind of maybe uh leads me in a little bit too, you know, I was curious about the difference between you know Kennedy being more litigation focused and it seems like Parker and Mitch being a little more transactional and regulatory. Uh I kind of wanted to ask what a typical day or week in the practice looks like. You know, I think uh Park Hughes mentioned you had one day recently where you know half the day is like something very different than what the next half of the day looks like. Um but I'm I'm curious uh you know what the difference might be between you know more transactional and regulatory for somebody that you know is kind of new to the health wall field and you know kind of uh what the day-to-day difference might look like.

SPEAKER_04 20:22

Yeah. Uh you know, for me, uh like like you were saying, it it's very different on a day-to-day basis. Um I think that someone coming into this practice, you know, you kind of got to keep in mind where you know, regionally where are you practicing, you know, what kind of firm you're at. Um, do they have a more reputation for being more litigation focused versus transactional focused? Um as and then like you you might even end up like someone like me who like yeah, there's a healthcare litigation department, and then there's a healthcare practice group and a healthcare regulatory practice group. And so I might be called upon to lend some help to the litigation group, you know, from time to time, do a little bit of research, draft a, you know, maybe turf a motion or something. Um, but you know, for me, I at least in the healthcare regulatory space, there's so many different things that you could be doing. A lot of times it's triage, you know. So I don't often try to uh have a game plan in mind, and then I come in and then it's just you know, it's really just thrown off. I just have to, you know, put out fires left and right. It might be uh counseling someone on a on a response to a HIPAA breach. Um it might be, you know, someone gets a letter from the um board of medicine that they're being investigated, might be something pertaining to information blocking. It might be a client reaches out and says, hey, uh, can you can you advise on these policies? Or can you be present in a board meeting that we've got later on today in case we've got any questions? And so um I think that both you know litigation and transaction are very challenging, very rewarding in their own respects. I don't think anyone um, you know, I I think I'd be much more comfortable in my current role. I don't know how. Litigators are able to wake up every day and go to court and and deal with that. I think that's its own uh its very own, very um impressive skill set that um I don't know if I'm well equipped for at this point in my career. Um, but I really enjoy all the the different variations that uh transactional law brings. And I'm sure that litigation has its own uh shades of coloring, you know, within its own practice.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

I think one thing I didn't necessarily expect, I sort of always wanted to go into litigation. I grew up playing sports, so I love the adversarial nature of it. But uh one thing I didn't necessarily expect is that I'm not just litigating every day, you know, I'm not always drafting motions or in hearings while those things are a really fun part of the job. Hall render, at least, we we do a really good job of involving litigators on the front end of issues that that pop up. And so, you know, so and so down the hallway might be drafting an employment agreement for uh a large health system, and they bring us in. You know, are all of these provisions enforceable? Are we covered from a false claims act standpoint? Are we covered from um, you know, are not our uh our non-compete agreements enforceable? Um, what can we expect to litigate if this goes south? And so I get to do that sort of contract review. And then on the other side of it, I also get to help with transactions groups, you know, like transactions uh attorneys help litigators, litigators also help transaction attorneys reviewing all sorts of things uh for due diligence in preparation for transactions to make sure that we're mining our Ps and Q's. And so not only is every day different, I mean sometimes every hour is different. And you know, that's honestly my favorite part of the job. Never the same day twice, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

And do you find that uh, you know, having kind of one foot in the door, it seems like with you know traditional litigation and also a foot on the more the front end and the transactional that you know one side or the other is maybe more predictable or something so you can you know uh plan for and have a more predictable workload or workflow, or um would you say that they kind of kind of doesn't matter whatever whatever day you walk in, it's just something new?

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Definitely litigation is uh there are the ebbs and flows. You just have to, if you're a litigator, you just know um every day is different, every month is different. You know, we have sort of trends, you know, around the holidays, things might slow down. But tomorrow I might come in the office and a new false claims act case is filed against a client and we're sort of all hands on deck, or there might be a non-party subpoena issued. And so again, it's sort of all hands on deck. But again, it's just part of the job that I personally love kind of coming in and not knowing what's gonna happen. It makes it really fun. And um, you know, talking to my transactions colleagues and Parker and Mitch can definitely provide some color into this. But um, you know, if you've got a transaction coming up, you're you're probably aware of it with a decent amount of time, or you know, you might get strange things come up, but litigation is definitely very, very up and down.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

I'll just jump in real quick. I think it's um so uh uh while I'm a regulatory attorney, I'm not really a transactional attorney, which uh might be surprising. Um my transactional practice is probably, I don't know, maybe five percent of what I do. Um so very, very small piece. Um most of what I do is regulatory and um you know, pure really it's you know, general counsels from hospitals or providers or PBMs or you know, whatever it may be, with random questions that no one has ever seen before. Um and um and then I have a small piece of my practice, which is probably about 15 to 20 percent, which is certificate of need litigation in Georgia specifically, um, which is its own world of healthcare law that I have had to become you know acquainted with over the last, I don't know, probably three years I've I've been pulled into that group. Um but yeah, the the difference between all of those um is is you know what makes my practice so interesting and and and Maynard has um you know kind of expertise in kind of all these different areas. And so I I kind of get to work with the experts on the different issues that come up. And um what's you know real interesting to me is how you know it can be, you know, uh whether it's a Friday at two o'clock or you know, a Monday at 7 a.m. If if if you get an email you know from a client, then you know, it's usually something that needs to be answered, you know, within a couple days. And so um, as far as you know, trying to predict what you know you have coming down the line is sometimes difficult with the ebbs and flows, but um I've from my experience, it seems to be, you know, it it seems to be a natural ride for the most part. Um, you know, there's there's when when the litigation uh when we have a hearing or something coming up and and you're busy with that almost non-stop, and then you still have you know regulatory issues coming in, um, that's when things can get um you know difficult and uh you know hard to work through. But um it's always you know, I have a good group of colleagues here at Maynard and Nixon that that help me work through that. And um so yeah, it's it's uh it's an interesting uh world to be in.

SPEAKER_03 27:44

Yeah, and that's maybe a good a good segue into the next topic that uh I was thinking we would hit on uh specifically for managing workloads and kind of you have competing priorities. And I I think it's something that you know uh a first-year associate, someone kind of fresh out of law school, they get right into their first law firm setting, can sometimes struggle with uh, you know, whether it's you know competing priorities or just um kind of managing the very different uh experiences just from being in law school where you have you literally have a syllabus, things are defined, you have readings week by week, it's very predictable going from that and just thrown right into a law firm environment. Um so do you all have any uh advice for you know new attorneys, either you know, inner fresh out of law school or or even just moving um laterally into the health law field to kind of help with getting acclimated to the new environment?

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Yeah, I mean so um I I'm somewhat I think probably unique in a way. So a week after I started at Maynard, I had twin girls. Um and so my life, you know, got very busy very fast. Um and they're now almost four. And um, you know, working as a you know associate um with two you know little girls at home and um as it's you know can be stressful, obviously, and a lot going on. But I think you know, managing your time wisely and and using the hours during the daylight uh for actual work, you know, and trying to be intentional about, you know, okay, I'm gonna work from, you know, seven to you know five today or eight to five or whatever the, you know, whatever it is for whatever it is you need to get done that day, and then, you know, try to shut off for that afternoon and you know, recalibrate for the next day, I think is really important, especially, you know, for the first couple years. You know, you're you're still trying to get into the the swing of things and learn and get to meet people and um figure out what exactly it is that you're even doing and practicing, um, because you know, that in and of itself is something that you know takes time to learn. And um I think someone told me once it takes, you know, like 10,000 hours to become an expert in something. And so um, you know, it it takes time and you have to remember that. And I think, you know, I know a lot of people, at least that I know, you know, worry about the uh what is it, the the syndrome where you you don't think you're imposter syndrome? Yeah, imposter syndrome. There you go. Um and uh talked to someone the other day, they've been practicing law 15 years and they said they had that. And so um I'm like, well, uh I was hoping it would go away at some point, but maybe not. Um, but anyway, I think just you know, remembering that, you know, you worked really hard to get where you are, and um, you do have a life outside of work and and remembering that and remembering that, you know, try to have fun, but also um, you know, make sure that the projects you're doing are are you're focusing on them and and you're treating them, you know. One one thing I like, you know, like to think about it is, you know, when you get a project, thinking of it as, you know, like that's your client. Um and and whether it, you know, if it's the partner that gave it to you, you know, think of that partner as your client and try to, you know, talk to them like you would, you know, a client and and try to make their life as easy as possible. And usually that, you know, will return to you, you know. Um, and you know, I think that that that's a good way to have a mindset of of kind of starting out.

SPEAKER_04 31:45

Yeah, I I think that uh starting out, especially that's that's probably the hardest part. Um, because you know, each place is different, each person is different. Um, I think for me at least the the key is just communication. Um, I I don't know how many times I've you know I've psyched myself out about something, and then I was just you know went down the hall or picked up the phone and said, hey, you know, what what's the time horizon on this? Can I, you know, can we can we make some kind of alternative arrangement? And the the the partner or whoever I'm working with is just like, yeah, of course, you know, we we've got flexibility here or or or otherwise, they'll tell me, you know, no, but here, you know, we can rearrange things to where this can get done in a timely manner. And so I think just doing that, being communicative, relying on your team. Um, and then kind of like what Mitch was saying was that, you know, I I think it's it took me too long to figure out that sometimes the best, you know, uh a really good way to get good at your job is to to to turn your mind off at some point. Um, I think you can easily get burned out if you if you don't set up um some kind of boundaries, and and that can be hard, especially in the beginning, but uh you realize that at some point in the day that um you do have a life outside of work, and those experiences aren't a hindrance um to your to your career advancement. They're actually a boon. Um, and that the experiences you have outside of life, outside of your working hours, um, they can help you develop clients, give you a new way to think about projects, and honestly just give you the um the energy you need to and the brain power you need to take on projects the next day at work.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Yeah, for sure. I think what Mitchell said about treating the partner as your client is invaluable. I think the more you can take accountability early on, the more it separates you from your colleagues. You know, if you're treating a matter like your matter and you're not just doing task-based work and you're thinking, you know, what needs to be done for this matter in the next day, what needs to be done for this matter in the next week, the next month? Um, you know, we joke a lot that we're paid to stress so that our clients don't have to stress. And treating it like that and really staying apprised of all the deadlines that you have, you know, especially in litigation that is so deadline driven. Um keeping the partner on task, keeping the partner on deadlines helps you too. So and I think what Parker said about compartmentalizing, you know, work is work, and when you're not working, you're not working is great advice when I first started out. I was constantly thinking about work, constantly, you know, pod listen to podcasts and reading and and writing client alerts and all of these things. And all of those things are great in moderation. If you don't shut your brain off and you're constantly thinking about work, uh it's just a very quick way to burn out. So I definitely would echo what Parker said.

SPEAKER_03 34:32

Yeah, and maybe that's another good segue to that um topic of burnout, maybe sort of going too fast too quickly as a young associate. Uh, I kind of wanted to talk about maybe more specifically what sort of boundaries or systems that y'all are able to implement to help prevent burnout. Um, you know, Katie, I I saw that you have a mini golden doodle named Teddy. Um, and I love that because I also just got a mini golden doodle named Remy, and I will say he's absolutely been the I don't know if right now he's actually helping or hurting with burnout, but something like that where you know it's something exciting to come home to every day, and um, you know, something that's uh very different than you know what what our traditional you know day-to-day client work is. Uh so I'm curious if you all have any specific um you know mechanisms or or things you do outside that that help uh help with that.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Yeah, my dog does help sometimes, except for when I get home and you know the house is a mess from him doing whatever. But uh you know what though, having a dog is the best boundary setting because you do have to leave the office at some point to take them out to use the bathroom and you have to feed them. And so it is sort of in and of itself a great way to have boundaries. But I think really just going back to burnout, doing small things for yourself every day, you know, whether it's I'm gonna make sure that I am billing my time contemporaneously, like that, waiting until the end of the month, you're gonna be spending your entire time on the day and then you're behind hours for the next month. Um, taking a walk outside, making yourself eat full healthy meals despite having tons of meetings on your calendar, you know, those small things make such a big difference and allow you to focus more on the work when you are taking care of yourself and your mental health.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

Even just not checking your email, you know, from after you get off work, you know, like last night when I got home, I I did not check my email until I got back to the office this morning, and it like literally gave me some kind of peace. I don't know what it was, but this morning when I got sat down at my computer, I was like, okay, I'm feel refreshed. I can I can look at them at all of them now. But um, it was like I just wanted I needed that for myself yesterday, just kind of shut off from the you know obsession of of like refreshing my email and like making sure no one's emailed me. Um but yeah, even small things like that, I think really important.

SPEAKER_03 37:09

And and I might jump in on that one too. I mean, uh just to like what you said about trying to take breaks at least from the email or being always connected to it. I had to get rid of uh an Apple Watch or at least from the notification setting off to where it would have a specific ring for Outlook when an you know an email came in. And it got to the point where my brain would just fake, almost feeling the sensation coming in, like, oh, check, you know, check my wrist. Did an email come in? And you know, doing like small things like Mitch said to just kind of you know physically separate yourself from that constant stream of constant ping. You know, things aren't gonna stop happening out uh with work and you know, in the industry that we're in, there's gonna be constant things happening, but you have to pull yourself out of it and then deliberately kind of reinsert yourself into it. So uh a couple of things then maybe similar on to that point, then you know, I think uh uh Kennedy, you you mentioned um you know fill blah requirements and you know, going at the end of the month and you know, going in and entering your time. I know that speaking from personal experience, that kind of filla requirement on top of your head can be almost an anxiety-inducing, you know, in and of itself, because every every minute you're thinking, oh, is this billable? Am I like counting toward you know this metric at the end of the day? Um, I was I was curious from y'all's perspective and in y'all's practice environment, if you uh if you're comfortable sharing, like if you have a billable requirement, like how does that work? And and maybe any strategies you have um to help you know either young associates you know capturing their time or earning their time or just any general strategies like that.

SPEAKER_04 38:48

Yeah, I I for for us we uh we do have a billable hour hour requirement. Uh it's it's annual. Um I think that you know one thing is is to obviously understand how it works, understand uh what's counted towards those hours, uh, what's not. Um, you know, when when does the reporting period begin? When does it end? When are you evaluated on that? I think those are all really important to gauge. And I, you know, luckily, uh, you know, my firm is is very helpful in figuring all that out. They lay out the cards on the tables to and really set you up for success. Um, I think the good a good way that that we were kind of taught to think about it is like, you know, think about it in terms of months. Um, think about it and then terms of weeks, try to get that that goal in mind, you know, what is it per per week? And then understand that your the way that our practice is, and it might be different for practice areas, you're often not going to get that, you know, right on the money every week. You know, it's sometimes you're gonna be over, sometimes you're gonna be under. And uh that that applies from month to month as well, and that applies from year to year as well. Um, at least for me, I I like Kenny was saying, like I try to contemporaneously enter my time. If I'm not in, I know some things come up, you gotta go back and kind of like edit your responses throughout the day or you know, the next day. Um, but you at least take notes and make sure that you're recording something contemporaneously. That way, like you don't have to stress about it. As and and even I know for me at the beginning of my career, I was entering a lot of time at the end of the week, but now I do it, you know, every as soon as possible because I find that I lose time otherwise. Um and so I just I I think at this point too, um I I used to stress about it a lot more. I sometimes I would stress more when I wasn't working than I actually was working because I was just thinking about time so much. But um, I think that you if you focus your energy on on doing work and doing good work, you're gonna have a lot of work come in. And then you're not going to worry about you know accumulating so much as you are just you know getting the work done and entering the time itself. Um so like at least at least for me in my area, I try not to think about it too much, but to realize it's it's obviously a very important um aspect of the job and and model for kind of for our profession.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

Yeah, and I'll just say um I write my time down, which was probably terrible. Um and then I have to, you know, go back and like rewrite it all in with my you know in my computer. Um and then so my wife is also an attorney and she uses the timers and she loves the timers, and apparently those are just incredible. And I've I'm trying to learn those um and and use that more. Um, but it I guess it's just something that I started, you know, when when I started practicing, I just like do shorthand and I'm just you know keep going. And um, but I I will say I I read recently something on LinkedIn, someone posted about time management and you know, contemporaneously writing down your time, and something I had never really thought about is um you know, when you're working on something and you finish it, if you go ahead and do your time right then, then you can bill for doing your time as well. And so uh according to this LinkedIn post, um, you know, billing is part of the task. So you kind of build it all in together and and then you move on to your next task. I've never been able to streamline anything that easily. Um, but in theory, it sounds like a good idea. Um, but um maybe one day I uh you know listening to y'all will give me inspiration to to do better as far as you know actually writing it all down because then at the end of the month, yeah, I spend about three hours rewriting everything um to to the way I need it to be, you know, for for the actual bills. So so yeah, it's uh billing is is one of those that um I think is is just you know, we'll deal with it in time.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

Yeah, I like I said earlier, I bill my time as I complete tasks or I'm working on different things, and I do feel like that it helps. It also kind of gives you a little bit of dopamine as you're getting through your day, kind of seeing the the progress bar go up. And uh one thing that also helps me if maybe I had a really busy day and wasn't able to get to billing is on my calendar, I will put, you know, here I'm gonna work on this project for this two-hour period, or and here I'm gonna do this. And um I also have a to-do list. I'm very organized. And so um, those things help me make sure that I'm getting credit for all of the work that I'm doing. Um, it's just important not to write off your time. I think it's really easy to self edit, um, but when you realize that you know you're only doing yourself a disservice, you're also doing the firm a disservice when you're writing off your time. Um I think billable hours can be a huge point of stress. But when you're first starting out, recognize everyone knows you're first starting out. And if you don't have billable work on your desk and you've exhausted your resources of letting everyone know that you have capacity, trying to find some non-billable stuff that will make you a better attorney, whether that's researching recent updates in health law or taking a CLE on how to write better or just networking with people in your firm. There are other ways that you can build a practice early on other than just billing hours, even though it is still really important to build hours.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

Yeah, and just to piggyback off that, you know, write it, you know, if if you don't have billable time and you know, researching and writing an article on a topic that you might not know a lot about, but another partner of the firm does know a lot about, you know, going to them and asking them to be a co-author and help you, you know, kind of finalize that that uh article or whatever it is, helps build the you know that relationship with that partner. And then also it's showing, you know, to the firm and to you know your clients and the community that that you and that partner are are researching and and looking into new ideas and and and growing in in your healthcare practice.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

Well, and business development is just as much of being an attorney as billing is, and the more that you can demonstrate to the firm that this isn't just a job for you, but this is you know a career and you're interested in health law more than just a paycheck. You're interested in, you know, helping our clients stay uh appris of all of the updates, and it it's just a great way to bring value to the firm early on.

SPEAKER_03 45:55

Absolutely. And uh I hate that we have to start to wrap up, but I wanted to ask one uh sort of closing question, um, which I probably should have asked from the start, but I I think it is one that would be helpful for um people listening. Um so what would you say is the biggest like pro or or perk um uh of your practice environment for you know the smaller regional firm setting as compared to say, you know, working uh uh for the government or working in-house or at a big uh national firm? Sort of what what's the one thing that stands out to you uh as uh you know, this is the reason I guess that you you are where you are and and and are there now?

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Yeah, I've been championing Hall Render this entire podcast, but it's such a special place because we get to serve great clients like I've talked about, but I also get to work with great people. You know, we talked about my mini golden doodle earlier. I probably spend more time with people at work than I do my mini golden doodle at home. So uh when you're picking a firm, it is so important to work with great people who are great at their jobs, but also that you enjoy spending time with and learning from and that you respect. Uh and so I think the culture at Hall Render is just really second to none.

SPEAKER_02 47:09

Yeah, I would uh I mean uh for Maynard, I would agree um that you know we have an excellent culture here and um doing work that's interesting to you with people that are nice and that are easy to work with, um, but still have, you know, expertise and they, you know, take the time to explain things to you and discuss uh issues and you know, take you to events and take you to client meetings and and have those opportunities with the clients and build uh build those relationships. I think, you know, is something that's you know take it to none with with Maynard. And um I've you know been able to uh meet clients and and and uh uh be a part of AHLA and and other organizations um that I you know I'm not sure you know what how or what opportunities there are for you know for government and and some of those um other uh jobs that you had mentioned. Um but I just know that you know with our firm uh we have an emphasis on learning and and development and uh associates and culture and and that's just really important uh to our group and and to our firm.

SPEAKER_04 48:37

Yeah, I guess I'll round it out here. Um I I've been um really uh uh pleased with my time here at uh at Jackson Kelly. I was able to summer here um while I was in law school. And um, you know, Jackson Kelly is uh, at least as far as West Virginia goes, um it's a very uh you know prominent firm. Everyone knows Jackson Kelly. I think it's like the sixth oldest law firm in the US. It's very old. We're celebrating, you know, well over 200 years of of history here. And it's cool to be able to work for a place that um is literally like in you know our West Virginia history books here. Um and I I think along with that comes the uh ability to integrate yourself in the community, and that's why I like it so much. Um I think it's uh working for a regional firm like this, you've been able to really, you know, get forward-facing, you know, be right in front of the client from day one. Um, you build those connections early on. You're not just like stuck behind a desk. Um, you're you're thrown out there. I mean, I can't, you know, I I've met so many different um business leaders, uh, politicians, providers, uh, just from in you know, my first few years at Jackson Kelly than I than I would think I could do anywhere else. And so I uh I also was given the advice um in law school at some point. I think, you know, if you can, you know, don't always, you know, take a job based on you know exactly what you're doing or what company you're working for, but um if you know the boss, you know, if you know who you're gonna be working for directly or who your colleagues are gonna be, uh, or you know, your coworkers are gonna be, you know, make a decision based off that because they're the ones that are going to be driving um you know your day-to-day, um, sometimes impacting your mood, um, advancing your career. And I think I've um been very lucky with that at Jackson Kelly and and all the people that we've interacted with and their clients here, uh, whether they're in our state or um beyond that. So I've been um I'm very grateful for that opportunity.

SPEAKER_03 50:40

And there's some really, really great answers to round us out here. Uh so thank you all so much uh for listening, and thank you to Kennedy and Parker and Mitch uh for being part of our panel today. We hope you enjoyed this episode of uh the Early Career Um Professional Councils How to Survive series. Uh and uh please look out for the next one. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

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