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Innovation, Leadership and Gratitude in Healthcare Law with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 11-26-25
00:13:47
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- [00:00]
A
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Becker Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by a unique and incredible leader. We're joined today by Amber Walsh. Amber is a first class top tier health care private equity lawyer and just generally great lawyer. She also is a great leader. She serves on the executive committee at McGuire Woods. She also prior to that served as the chair of the healthcare group at McGuire Woods. And she my own reality is she took over from me when I had done that role for a long time and then the group accelerated in its growth. So she did an incredible job of really improving the group post my leadership under her leadership. She's going to talk to us today about a few things that she's grateful for, things she's thinking about. And I think a perfect topic is we have the Thanksgiving. We'll try and get this released tomorrow so people could hear it as they move into Thanksgiving. Amber, let me let you take it away and tell us a few of the things that you're thinking about.
- [01:07]
B
Absolutely. Thank you, Scott. And of course, this is one of the times of the year that we think about gratitude a lot. And while I certainly have a tremendous amount of gratitude for things in my professional life, health, family, family, friends, all of the other things that we are also thankful for, I'm really thinking today about a few specific things in my professional life for which I'm very thankful. And they're all different types of innovation. They are innovation in our clients, what our clients are doing and how they are delivering care in the healthcare industry. And the small part that we get to play in that, it is innovation in the way that I get to and my colleagues get to work, that we do the day to day job of being a lawyer and then innovation in the administration of the law firm and those types of advances. And I can talk a little bit about each of these types of innovations, but they all are ways in which we get to be a part of something that is constantly dealing with a particular challenge that needs a solution. We work on innovating or we help our clients innovate and we figure out all how to do it as lawyers in the bounds of the law. And it's really what makes what we do fun and uplifting and feel like you're actually doing something beneficial for the community.
- [02:51]
A
Thank you. And talk about a little bit about sort of the clients you get to work with and highly innovative things, the leadership, the things you do from a high innovation standpoint, the use of technology and these things and a lot more Give us a little bit more depth on a few of those.
- [03:09]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So I'll just start with our innovative clients and how we get to play a role in helping them with their own innovation. And a lot of times you hear the word innovation and you immediately think of. Of course, these, these days the first thing you think about is AI. And of course everyone is incorporating AI into their business. And I'll talk about that in a minute, how we are doing that. But I don't just mean digital tech AI. I also am referring to other types of innovation and advancements of care and payment models. So just to give you some examples of a few, all of which I literally touched this week, or at least in the past 10 days. It's things like innovation in the delivery of primary care and in ways that transcend just telehealth. Telehealth is amazing. And the tools that power telehealth are amazing. But you can also have innovation in how patients ascribe to concierge medical plans and how they receive services through primary care that previously thought about within that discipline and how primary care physicians are incorporating in that robust kind of service offerings. That's innovation. It's hospitals at home, it's infection controls that are now more targeted at specific pathogens that are seen in specific settings and specific specialty types that allow certain procedures to move out of the hospital and into a surgery center or even in the office. It's innovation in anesthesia and the use of regional anesthesia with ultrasound or the enhanced recovery after surgery protocols. I could go on and on, but it is really rewarding to be able to work with clients who are making these sorts of innovative moves. And our job is to help them figure out how to do that when quite often the law hasn't caught up to where they are clinically. So we spend a lot of time helping guide through. Okay. You feel like this is appropriate. Your society, your specialty society thinks it is appropriate way to deliver care, but the law in a particular state hasn't caught up. So that's just one of many ways that I get to be involved in innovation in health care without actually being a health care provider.
- [05:59]
A
No. Fantastic. And talk a little about the same with colleagues and with leadership, how you think about innovation and what you're seeing and where you're thankful.
- [06:09]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So a large part of what we do in a large law firm is not the provision of legal services. It goes beyond that and certainly the more senior you get. Although from day one, as a very first year lawyer, first day A big part of what you're doing is the administration of your practice. And we have literally half of the team at a large law firm are typically the non lawyers, the professionals who support the administrative function of the law firm. And it's been really interesting to see the innovation in that way as well. And on these similar themes as our own healthcare clients deal with it is very, very tech driven, certainly AI a lot. But there's also human innovation in how we think about the needs of our clients and our colleagues. So I think it is equally fun and innovative to think about hiring new leadership or building growing new leadership. You interviewed our colleague who is now the director of lateral partner integration, Erin Ryan. That is an innovation in focusing on something that was a sore spot for the legal industry. We built a program, we hired from within the right person to lead that. We have countless examples of that. We now have a director of client experience, Mary Light. We have people in the firm who are focused on our associate engagement and how to get them more engaged and trained and connected. And these innovations extend to recruiting. We're using predictive analytics and recruiting, all sorts of things in that vein. But it's similar to our clients trying to use a combination of both technology but also kind of human experience and skill set development to just be better.
- [08:23]
A
No. And I love that. And Mary White, you and I have each worked with for a long time. Aaron Ryan's a special, special person. So two great examples of a different way about going about it. And the law firm has been incredible over the last couple decades. It constantly look at innovative ways of doing business and working with people and working with clients. And so I love the shout out on that.
- [08:45]
B
Well and then of course we have the ways that we're innovating how to simply provide legal services. AI is the constant, constant, constant theme. We all know that. But what I found even in the past few months is so exciting is the breadth of use cases that we are seeing within the firm and outside of the firm in how we are experiencing AI. And in such a short period of time we went as lawyers, we are naturally cautious, we are risk averse. It is our job to identify potential problems and then try to find a solution around the problem. And then now having such a dramatic percentage of the firm, myself included people who, you know, weren't tech heavy, we are the more senior people in the firm. And now I'm using our own AI tools on an almost daily basis for and to think how quickly we got there and got comfortable with that. And it's clearly not just within McGuire Woods. Harvard Law center just released a study that literally 100% of the AmLaw100 are using AI for client services as approved by clients, where just one year ago it was less than 50%. So it's pretty extraordinary. It's scary, but it's really, really interesting. Fun. And it caught on and spread up the ranks to really senior people much faster than I thought.
- [10:33]
A
That's simply amazing. And talk about the Harvard Program on Innovation and AI that you are part of. Talk about what that looks like and how that works.
- [10:41]
B
Yeah, so the Harvard Law Center. So the study that I mentioned is actually just a survey that they did in their interviews, innovation interviews that they have done with the AMLA 100 that reported that. But separately, Harvard also has this innovation group where they gather law firm leaders from all over the world to come together in an intensive program, but then to stay together and continue to share best practices, to learn from each other, to learn when a firm fails and what they did wrong, to avoid it and to get better. And that's also a really interesting. It actually is a dual program that Harvard runs from the Law center, but then also the MBA school and their executive training center, which is really neat.
- [11:35]
A
That's fantastic. And how helpful is it for you to stay inspired and motivated to visit with these very innovative clients, the people at the Harvard program as well as the people that you deal with on the firm's executive leadership team. How well was it for you to keep the brain moving, to keep thinking, to keep sharp, to stay motivated? How helpful are those things for yourself personally?
- [12:02]
B
It is not just helpful, it is essential. It is existential. I cannot fathom that I would have the energy and motivation to get up every day and keep doing the same type of work every day if I didn't have the interaction with my colleagues who are constantly learning new things and sharing and developing new things just within the healthcare group, but also in the firm at large, to have someone constantly saying, yes, this is a problem. Let's not just accept it's a problem, let's do something about it and let's figure out how to do it. That's one of the things that the executive committee at the firm gets to do all the time. And that's the same thing that I do with fellow lawyers and law firm leaders outside of the firm through Harvard and my health care bar and all my other interactions. It's. That's good stuff. That's where you feel like you're actually improving and not just on a hamster wheel, not just doing the same thing over and over, but you're actually making things better. And I can't fathom having the energy to do this for another couple of decades if I didn't have that.
- [13:21]
A
No, I think that is just fantastic. You do an incredible job. I am so thankful that he have the chance to visit with you regularly, both through the law firm and on the podcast again. Amber Walsh, executive, Monique McGuire woods, an incredible leader in person. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business podcast. Just tremendous. Thank you.
- [13:43]
B
Thank you, Scott.