Alumni Celebrate Long-Lasting Impacts of Health Law and Policy Fellowships at Roundtable
At the Health Law and Policy Fellowship Roundtable (inset, left to right): Lauren Numeroff ’10, senior attorney at the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights; and alumni fellows Sydney Wolchok ’22 and Mo Hoffman ’17.
Alumni whose big ideas and hard work gave rise to the Health Law and Policy Fellowship, along with more than 50 alumni fellows from across the years, current students, and faculty mentors, gathered to share thoughts on the past, present, and future direction of the fellowship, as well as how it has impacted their careers, at a Health Law and Policy Fellowship reception and roundtable on the evening of Feb. 27.
Led by Associate Dean for Academic and Student Success Karen Porter, director of the Center for Health, Science & Public Policy, and Amy Hsieh ’11, executive director of Brooklyn Law School’s Public Service Law Center, the discussion kicked off with a shared history of how the fellowship came to be. “From the beginning,” Porter said, “the fellowship has been a labor of love to advance work and opportunities in the health law and policy field. It is now the heart of the Center.”
“It was a dream come true,” said Hsieh, who was joined by key alumni advocates Coco Culhane ’10 (adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School and director of the Veteran Advocacy Project), Lauren Numeroff ’10 (senior attorney at the U.S. Dept. of Education, Office for Civil Rights), and Erik Schneebeck ’10 (attorney for the Simons Foundation). They relayed their efforts to gather faculty and administrative support, secure funding, and launch a selection committee to bring to fruition a fellowship that would allow students to expand their interest in health law and policy into the world of research and valuable hands-on experience.
Sharing their wide-ranging career experiences, from directly health-related careers in research, compliance, and privacy to, as one participant said, the “health law adjacent,” the alumni fellows each had a story of how their fellowships and the great support and guidance of Porter and faculty mentors have had a lasting effect on the work they pursued.
“The fellowship opened my eyes,” said Mallory Turk ’15, a partner at Aaronson Rappaport Feinstein & Deutsch, who works in medical malpractice defense. The skills she developed through her research on electronic medical records, she added, “now impact most of my cases.”
Shoshana Finkel ’23, an employee benefits investigator for the U.S. Department of Labor, agreed. “That background of deep, back-end digging I had in my fellowship research on regulatory guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic has helped me in this work,” she said.
Some alumni, such as Alana Katz ’13, supply chain counsel for Northwell Health, and Brittany Bell ’18, senior counsel for digital and data assets at health technology company McKesson, had started out in Big Law, but their passion for health law and the foundation of the fellowship led them back to the field.
Others, such as Tom Kelly ’20, senior associate at Alston & Bird, said that while his professional focus is on finance and bankruptcy, the fellowship and an externship he completed with the Health Law Bureau of the Attorney General’s Office were influential. They especially inform his pro bono work, he said, which involves assisting veterans who have received dishonorable discharges, many because of health reasons such as PTSD.
The group also offered ideas on the “hot topics” in health law and policy that can be explored by current and future fellows, including data privacy, electronic health records, vaccinations, data brokering, and potential changes in Medicaid under the current presidential administration.
All the roundtable participants emphasized the satisfaction of finding their like-minded cohort at the Law School, and of the incredible opportunities that the fellowship offered, not only for skill building and experience but also for networking in the field and access to the built-in network of fellows who continue to offer guidance and support.
At the opening reception, President and Joseph Crea Dean David D. Meyer offered welcoming remarks lauding the contributions of the fellows for their research, the impact of their service on the community, and the entrepreneurial spirit of the early students who initiated the creation of the Health Law and Policy Fellowship.
Awards of thanks were also presented by Porter to faculty and staff members who, she said, “have been integral to the fellowship, to mentorship, and to the fellows selection committee over the years”: 1901 Distinguished Research Professor of Law Marsha Garrison, Professor Adam Kolber, former professor Frank Pasquale, former adjunct professor Salvatore Russo, adjunct professor Elinor Hoffman (chief of the Antitrust Bureau at the New York Attorney General’s Office), and former clinic administrator Ana Puello.
“The fellowship is going strong,” Porter said in concluding the roundtable, “and this is a time of great opportunity for it to grow and thrive as our fellows become a vital part of this community.”
See photos of the event here:
Read more about the careers of past alumni fellows here.