How Health Law and Policy Fellows Forged Cutting-Edge Careers

For more than a decade, students who became intrigued by the innovative field of health care law have gained hands-on experience and conducted rigorous, in-depth research through Brooklyn Law School’s Health Law and Policy Fellowships, led by Associate Dean Karen Porter, director of the Center for Health, Science & Public Policy.  

The one-year program, which has trained 75 fellows over the years in the areas of health, public health, science, and/or biotechnology, has helped launch many successful careers in the field. On Feb. 27, the community and fellows past and present will gather for a Retrospective Roundtable Discussion and Reception to focus on what the Health Law and Policy Fellowships have accomplished, where they are heading in the future, and to celebrate the dedicated work of our alumni. To register, click here. 

In anticipation of the Roundtable, we checked in with five of those alumni whose careers have led them into exciting legal areas such as the use of machine learning in drug development, formulating proposals for state regulation of pharmaceutical companies, and finding solutions to the outsized impact of pollution on low-income communities and communities of color. 

Here are their stories:  

Brittany Bell ’18, Senior Counsel, Digital and Data Assets, McKesson Corp.

The issue of privacy has been uppermost in Brittany Bell ’18’s work since the days of her fellowship, when she researched the privacy implications of data tracked by healthcare devices such as glucose and heart-rate monitors and activity trackers.  

“Wearable devices were becoming really big at that time, and that was something I was very skeptical about,” Bell said. “I used to classify myself like the technophobic investigator character Will Smith played in the film I, Robot.” 

Yet, as with Smith’s character, that skepticism fueled a desire to investigate and to find solutions. Bell came into Brooklyn Law School with an interest in health law, but this took a back seat when core courses took precedent. However, when she attended her first health law class with Porter, her exposure to the field took off. Bell credits the professor for helping her make connections within the health law space (Bell completed an externship in the Health Care Bureau of the New York State Attorney General’s office), encouraging her to revitalize the Law School’s Health Law Student Association (of which she became president), and serving as a key mentor for her research as a fellow.  

While Bell began her legal career in mergers and acquisitions at a Big Law firm, in an attempt, she said, “to avoid being pigeonholed in one area of practice,” she soon saw the expanding possibilities in the area of health law and followed her instincts to join the firm McDermott Will & Emery to focus on client health-care transactions and regulatory compliance.  

Later, within the smaller legal team at the Manhattan-based cancer-care research and treatment-development company COTA Healthcare, Bell gained wide experience supporting the company in areas ranging from HR to information security to privacy. “COTA is a company that does work with real-world evidence and a lot of what they do involves machine learning,” she said. “So, in meeting and working with engineers, I also had to learn about the technical side of product and algorithm development. It was a huge learning opportunity.” 

That immersion served her well. She was hired in her current position as in-house privacy counsel to various oncology-focused business units for health technology and product giant McKesson Corp. because of the depth of work she had done in her previous positions.  

Finding her niche in the health care field has been a natural progression, Bell said. “Each job is a stepping stone. It’s how you grow.” 

Monica Beshay ’20, Attorney, New Jersey Department of Health 

During the COVID pandemic, doing her fellowship research on various state regulatory approaches to vaping and its health effects was a challenge, said Monica Beshay ’20. But it was one she met thanks to the caring and guidance of  Porter and the late Professor Larry Solan.  

In each post-graduation position that followed, Beshay said, she built upon those fellowship research skills, comparing and contrasting federal, state, and local regulations. From a judicial clerkship with the Hon. Thomas J. Buck in the New Jersey Superior Court, Beshay progressed to working in compliance research for pharmaceutical companies with consultancy G&M Health, and then as an associate at Goldman Sachs. In summer 2024, she joined the legal team at the New Jersey Department of Health.  

“The fellowship goes back to the essentials of being a lawyer. Whether I’m working on Wall Street or the Department of Health, there are a lot of similarities,” Beshay said. “What made me do well in my fellowship—the ability to ask questions, to find connections—helped me advance in my career.”  

Marissa Espinoza Icochea ’23, Associate, Healthcare Group, Nixon Peabody 

While Marissa Espinoza Icochea ’23 was a Health Law and Policy Fellow, researching government oversight and regulation of for-profit nursing homes, she gained firsthand insight into how government works. She was simultaneously working full time, initially as communications director for the New York State Senate and then as director of intergovernmental affairs, Long Island, for the New York State Executive Chamber. Her research paper—strongly supported, she said, by the feedback and guidance of Porter and Professor Frank Pasquale—was published in 2022 in the Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights and Social Justice.  

“The fellowship helped me sharpen my research skills and strengthened my ability to write concisely as a lawyer,” Espinoza Icochea said. “It also helped me further my knowledge in an area of health law, which enabled me to market myself in that sector when applying for jobs.”  

Coinciding with her desire to transition out of government and into health care law, she landed her position at Nixon Peabody, where she works on a combination of mergers and acquisitions and general corporate work, heavily in the health care space, along with health care research. In January, an article she co-wrote with colleagues, “The Challenges for Private Equity in Health Care,” was published in the Thomson Reuters publication Practical Law The Journal.  

Xiaoliang “Barry” Ma ’18, Associate Director, Legal Affairs, Edgewise Therapeutics 

When Xiaoliang Barry Ma ’18 entered Brooklyn Law and took Porter’s Public Health and Policy Seminar, he had already received his master’s in public health (epidemiology) from the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy and had worked as a research assistant at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. “One of the reasons for going to law school was to get a better understanding of the legal and regulatory responses to public health research,” Ma said. 

As a Health Law and Policy Fellow, he explored the legality of mandatory flu vaccination among children and healthcare workers, and, he said, he was able to build on his previous research experience while also receiving solid advice and mentorship from Dean Porter.  

After spending the first few years after law school as an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Ma segued to the Boston offices of Ropes & Gray, where, in the firm’s IP and technology transactions group, he could focus on the life sciences industry.  

He then decided to transition to become in-house corporate counsel for Seattle-based Chinook Therapeutics, which specialized in scientific capabilities and treatments for patients with rare kidney diseases. When Chinook was acquired by Novartis not long after he was hired, Ma said, he also gained experience in mergers and acquisitions and post-closing work. Unfortunately, a year after the Novartis acquisition he was laid off along with many other Chinook employees. 

Now, as associate director for legal affairs at Edgewise Therapeutics, a Boulder, Colo.-based firm which develops treatments for skeletal and cardiac muscle diseases, Ma handles all aspects of corporate transactions such as contracts, Securities and Exchange Commission filings, and data privacy. “I have deviated a bit from where I started, in public health but the experiences are related,” Ma said. “We’re still doing research, and we’re doing important work for patients.”  

Sydney Wolchok ’22, Attorney, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, New York/Caribbean Superfund Branch 

A passion for exploring the nexus between public health and environmental issues led Sydney Wolchok ’22 to pursue a dual major in environmental science and human health at Emory University, a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, and a law degree from Brooklyn Law School. Those degrees, along with wide-ranging internships, BLS Community Development Clinic work, and fellowships led her to what she considers her “dream job” at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  

Within the EPA Region 2’s Superfund branches, which cover New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, Wolchok said, “We’re working with communities who are adversely affected by contaminated land through engagement in the public notice and comment periods and by holding public meetings to get the community’s input and to hear their concerns. We also have community advisory groups to ensure significant representation.” 

Along with Wolchok’s internships conducting research on energy and climate change regulations, her Health Law fellowship research also helped set the stage for her career. It examined the adverse health effects of air pollution from vehicle emissions, residual heating oil, and power plant emissions on low-income communities and communities of color.  

“In law school,” Wolchok said, “I tried to absorb as much as I could, take every environmental law class I could, such as the Sustainable Buildings course dealing with the real estate–environmental crossover, I was an Edward V. Sparer Public Interest Law Fellow, and participated in the Health Law and Policy Fellowship.” 

Her advice to students? “Take advantage of externship programs,” Wolchok said. “They are the perfect opportunity to build networks and forge your own path.”