Q: Where do you work and what is your area of health law specialization?
I work at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP in the Government Enforcement and Investigations Practice Group, focusing on healthcare fraud both in the civil and criminal context. Most of my work centers on the Anti-Kickback Statute, the False Claims Act, and Stark Law.
Q: What is your highlight reel? Your career defining moment?
The most significant moment of my legal career thus far was convincing the DOJ to dismiss all criminal charges against my client for violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute. I helped draft a presentation explaining why my client’s conduct was lawful and why his prosecution did not serve the interests of justice. Despite my client facing a lengthy prison sentence, the DOJ dropped all charges against him and requested a complete dismissal of the case before trial—a rare feat and terrific outcome for my client.
Q: What are you doing when you are not working? What is a unique thing about you that has nothing to do with lawyering?
When I am not working, you can find me at the golf course with my husband or reading a book on my front porch.
Before attending law school, I worked at a literary agency that represented historic authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Langston Hughes, and Lois Lowry. I first became interested in attending law school after working on a project where I had to trace the television rights to one of Fitzgerald’s short story collections by reviewing his old publishing contracts and last will and testament.
Q: What do you see as an emerging area/topic?
A growing chorus of courts have adopted a more stringent causation standard in False Claims Act cases that are predicated on violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute, but a circuit split remains—teeing up potential intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Sixth and Eighth Circuits have both held that but-for causation is needed; in other words, a showing that the defendant would not have submitted the alleged false claim to a federal healthcare program but for the payment of the alleged kickback. But the Third Circuit has adopted a more lenient standard, which merely requires a “link” between the alleged false claim and the alleged kickback. The First Circuit is expected to rule on this issue later this year after two district courts in its jurisdiction reached opposite conclusions.
Defendants should raise this issue early in their cases, highlighting the growing judicial approval of but-for causation and attacking relators’ claims for failure to plausibly allege that the false claims would not have been submitted to the government without the alleged kickbacks.
