One thing you’ll never have to worry about if you choose to practice health law is the relevance of your work. Open the paper and you’re bound to see a reference to some health care issue, probably on the front page.

It’s precisely the vast territory of health law that makes the field tough for new lawyers to canvass, let alone define.

"When you’re a health lawyer, you’re really dealing with a broad range of issues, but for a specialized client," says Robert Roth, immediate past chair of the ABA Health Law Section and a partner at Crowell and Moring in Washington, D.C. The practice, he says, is driven by who the client is, rather than by the parameters of a specific body of law.

You can be a health lawyer with an antitrust practice, a health lawyer with a regulatory practice, a health lawyer with a tort practice, a health lawyer with a contract practice, a health lawyer with a government practice, and so on.

Here are snapshot profiles of the professional lives of ABA leaders involved with different aspects of health law:

Smeeta Rishi carved out an unusual niche for herself in the San Francisco Bay area as a solo with a corporate transactional health care practice. "Once you have your own clients, you can do your own thing," says Rishi, chair of the ABA Business Law Section’s health law committee.

First, Rishi put in her years with more than one firm to develop her skills and a client base. Then she struck out on her own, representing doctors and entities created by physicians. Her work involves a great deal of contract drafting and pushing to get her clients paid by health care companies, insurers, and the like.

Douglas Ross, by contrast, has a different work and professional environment with a private practice in health care litigation and antitrust work. "Much of what I do is give health care clients antitrust advice," says Ross, a partner with Davis Wright Tremaine in Seattle and chair of the ABA Antitrust Law Section’s health care industry committee. Before going into private practice, Ross learned the governmental side of the law as a lawyer in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division.

As director of the corporate compliance program for Blue Shield of California, Sara Keller says she wrestles with an overarching question that plagues industry, government, patients, and providers alike: "How do we get health care costs under control?" She also confronts that question and others like it as chair of the ABA Health Law Section.

It’s tough to land an in-house job straight from law school, Keller says, recounting her own 20-year career odyssey. She started with a firm that represented Blue Shield as well as the California Medical Association, the state’s largest association of physicians. During her tenure at the firm she saw health law issues from the vantages of her diverse clients. From there she moved on to a small firm, and finally to Blue Shield, her former client.

Government work, Keller advises, is an ideal springboard for a health law practice. She says that in addition to seeking opportunities at the huge federal agencies with involvement in health care issues (like the Department of Health and Human Services), students should investigate job possibilities at the state level with entities that regulate insurance, hospitals, and physicians. She also notes that students should remember the office of the state attorney general, which in many states prosecutes actions regarding physician licensing and other health-related issues.

Then there are highly specialized practices, like that of H. Stephen Brown, who represents pharmaceutical manufacturers, device manufacturers, and providers of what he terms "biological services." His work with the 20-odd member Bogatin Law Firm in Memphis, Tenn., involves the array of federal and state regulatory schemes that affect drugs and other regulated products, such as blood. Brown also is chair of the health and human service committee of the ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice.

When taking stock of your skills, don’t forget about the value of alternative dispute resolution. A partner at Troutman Sanders in Richmond, Va., Roderick Mathews relies on ADR skills to resolve health care disputes between the physicians he represents and managed care organizations. The best current career bets for new graduates lie in representing health care providers in business and antitrust matters and working in-house within the hospital business, says Mathews, former chair of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution’s committee on health care and ADR.

A plus of working in health law is that the health care industry is "recession proof" and a fertile source of legal work, says Howard Wall, co-chair of the Emerging Issues Program of the ABA Health Law Section. A health lawyer’s client base generally stays fit, even during economic downturns, he says.

A single massive development—increased federalization—has transformed the practice during the last two decades and guarantees the continued vitality of the practice, says Roth, the Health Law Section’s immediate past chair. Before he entered private practice, Roth spent nearly 20 years working on health law issues for government agencies at the federal and state levels.

Roughly 60 cents of every health care dollar spent in the United States comes from Uncle Sam, via programs as diverse as Medicare, Medicaid, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Defense, Roth says. To emphasize the enormity of the federal government’s involvement in health care, he points out that the Medicare slice of the federal pie will amount this year to a whopping $240 billion.

For health lawyers, that’s a good statistic. Federal money comes with federal regulation, and where there’s regulation, there’s lots of work for lawyers. As Roth points out, "It’s hard to imagine that the federal government will be spending that kind of money and rolling back its regulatory reach."

Your first stop for information about opportunities in health law should be the ABA Health Law Section (www.abanet.org/health). Click on the "Job Opportunities" link to get an idea about possible career goals. Better yet, join the section for the reduced student rate of $10 and get The Health Lawyer journal, plus a chance to sign on with one of the section’s special interest groups.

If your goal is to include a strong regulatory angle to your practice, turn to the Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice (www.abanet.org/adminlaw). The section’s home page has a link to information specifically for law students. Membership is free for law students, and it offers access to the section’s publications plus a chance to participate in the section’s committees and events.

Prospective antitrust lawyers interested in health law should investigate the Section of Antitrust Law (www.abanet.org/antitrust), particularly the section’s committee on the health care industry. There’s no charge for students to join the section; by doing so you’ll receive Antitrust magazine and the Antitrust Law Journal.

Don’t forget about other ABA sections that may mesh with your interests. There’s the health law committee of the Section of Business Law (www.abanet.org/ buslaw/health), which ABA student members can join at no charge. Then there’s the Section of Dispute Resolution (www.abanet.org/dispute), which has a committee on health care and ADR. Student membership in that section is $10.

The Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities (www.abanet.org/irr) has a committee devoted to health rights. Section membership for law students costs $15. Also consider TIPS, the Tort and Insurance Practice Section (www.abanet.org/tips). Section membership is free for law students, and the section’s web site includes a law student page. TIPS has committees concerning the law of health and disability insurance, employee benefits, insurance coverage, and medicine and the law.