How to Survive… Small and Regional Law Firms
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What motivated each panelist to pursue a career in health law?
This episode of AHLA Speaking of Health Law is brought to you by AHLA members and donors like you. For more information, visit American Health Law.org.
Hello and welcome to another edition of AHLA's Speaking of Health Wall 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. practice. The series so far has been focused on various settings, including uh law firm settings, uh in-house settings, uh and governmental roles. My name is Tyler Dysart. I'm on the programming committee for the Early Career Professionals Council, and I'm going to be moderating today's episode. I'm an associate at 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.
And today's episode in particular now is going to be focused on a small Firm setting. And so there's no great definition for what that might be, but you might hear the term in a regional or boutique firm, something uh along those lines. Uh and today I'm joined by a great panel panel today. Um, we have uh Kennedy Bunch, who is an attorney at Hall Render, uh, Mitch Surface, who's an associate at uh Maynard Nexon, and Parker Zop, who is an associate. associate at Jackson Kelly. Um and I'm going to 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 um to begin with.
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 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 of healthcare litigation. Uh my practice is different every day, but I really enjoy it and and Hall Render is a great place
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 Nexon in in Birmingham, Alabama. Um, and I represent uh clients in the healthcare regulatory compliance space. Um I uh 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 we're at 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 kinda 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 kinda help uh regional hospitals throughout the southeast uh you know, kind of prevent litigation and prevent those issues. So um so yeah
Uh I guess I'll go next. Uh thank you all for having me here today. Um, much like the other two panelists. Um 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 of West Virginia has kind of been trending more towards uh having increases in in demands for healthcare because of our population.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What motivated each panelist to pursue a career in health law?
0:05–6:02
2
How do litigation‑focused and regulatory‑focused health law practices differ at small firms?
6:02–13:49
3
What strategies do new associates use to manage competing projects and senior‑partner expectations?
13:49–20:28
4
How can associates prevent burnout while handling the fast‑paced demands of regional health‑law work?
20:28–28:46
5
What practical tools and habits help lawyers track billable hours more efficiently?
28:46–35:18
6
How do small‑firm cultures and community involvement create unique perks for health‑law attorneys?
35:18–41:34
7
What advice do seasoned associates give for building a practice early on beyond just billing hours?
41:34–49:17
8
What is the biggest advantage of working at a regional law firm compared to large firms or in‑house roles?
49:17–51:37
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from AHLA's Speaking of Health Law
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