A Conversation With ... Charity Elmer

Tell us about CoxHealth’s legal department, which you manage.
When I started, I was the only attorney (with a) risk manager and two support people. Now, we’ve grown to me, three other lawyers, a risk manager, a paralegal and three other support staff. This department handles everything legal for (CoxHealth), whether we do it internally or we farm it out. We handle all the workers’ compensation for our employees and purchase insurance for the system, whether it’s directors and officers or an umbrella policy (to protect the health system). And then we do all things for risk management, such as liability claims.

What’s your average workweek like?
It’s a little different for me than for the other attorneys in the office, but I’m probably in meetings at least 20 to 30 hours a week. It’s a lot of meetings, and usually those meetings generate work for legal, because we go to give advice, and the operations folks have deals they need to get done or issues they need to get answered. Meetings always generate work for lawyers. Other than that, e-mail is the bane of my existence. I get lots of e-mail, and that’s usually how a lot of projects come in. I try to squeeze in legal work here and there, where I block off a couple hours to review contracts. I work on most of the larger physician transactions. We have a lot of contracts with physicians. But the larger contracts  – maybe not one with just an individual physician but a physician group – I handle those. I do tons of contract negotiations.

Do you still think there are challenges for women in the legal field?
I can’t say that I feel that at Cox, because I’m the attorney for the system, and my three other attorneys are all female. That was not intentional, it’s just that often, the people who want to come in-house want more flexibility, and that seems to be women, because their spouses also work. But I hear, in the law firm world, that it is still an issue for women, the glass ceiling.

What advice do you have for other young women in the legal field?
Balancing family is extremely challenging. It’s probably not any more challenging than for any other woman who works and has kids. Some women go to all the trouble to get their law degree, then they have children and completely quit. Getting back into the work force is very hard, so my advice is to always try to keep your foot in the door as much as possible, doing something. If you stop, you’re going to lose your legal skills and not be very marketable. ... Also, work hard. I can’t tell you how important it is to be honest, even when what you’re saying isn’t easy to say.

How will health reform affect your department?
It will have a huge effect on us, because buried in all that reform are little changes and tinkers to all the laws that we now know and understand, and we’ll be forced to relearn those. Often, it will come up on a case-by-case basis. There’s a lot of privacy stuff. I’ll learn a lot about it at the upcoming American Health Lawyers Association conference, but I don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and call an outside attorney. It’s cheaper for me to call that attorney and spend 20 minutes on the phone than it is to research it for four hours.
[[In-content Ad]]The Springfield-area legal community had seven representatives at Missouri Lawyers Weekly’s 12th Annual Women’s Justice Awards in April. In addition to Rising Star Charity Elmer, local honorees were:

Stacie Bilyeu, criminal defense attorney with Askinosie & Bilyeu, who won a Trial Practitioner Award;

Crista Hogan, executive director of the Springfield Metropolitan Bar Association, who received an Enterprise Award;

Morey Mechlin, local activist, who received a Citizenship Award;

Carol Miller, Missouri State University business law professor, who was named a Legal Scholar;

Judge Nancy Rahmeyer, Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District, who received a Public Official Award; and

Deanna K. Scott, director of litigation for Legal Services of Southern Missouri, who won a Public Service Practitioner Award.