Lana M. Smith graduated from DePaul University College of
Law in May 2016 with a Juris Doctorate and a Health Law Certificate. Smith
shared with the E-Pulse her favorite moments as a DePaul law student, advice
for younger students, and where she hopes her law career will take her.
Lana, a Michigan native, graduated from the University of
Michigan with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and Comparative Cultures
with a minor in Italian. From an early
age, as the daughter of a nurse, Smith was exposed to the medical field and wanted
to participate in it in some capacity.
However, due to her squeamish nature she decided that her best course
would be to enter the field as a lawyer.
At DePaul Law, Lana was an integral member on the Jaharis
Health Law Institute (JHLI) Student Board, a staff writer for the JHLI E-Pulse,
as well as a member of several moot court teams. On the JHLI Student Board, Lana’s role as Co-Director
of Outreach and Recruitment oversaw a massive increase in JHLI fellowship over
the past two years. As a student,
Smith’s favorite class was Bioethics with Professor Steven Resnicoff. She particularly enjoyed this class because
it provided a completely different approach from previous classes that she was
used to. Professor Resnicoff based his
class around looking at every possible side of an issue and how it affected all
of the different parties. As for the
most practical class that Lana had taken during her law school tenure, she
mentioned that Administrative Law is the most important class for someone interested
in health law. She said that, “in health
care, everything is an agency so in order to best serve your client, you need
to know how those agencies work.”
Outside of the classroom, Lana has participated in a
spectrum of health law related jobs. She
first began as a clerk at the Department of Health and Family Services. There, Smith was assigned to hearing officers
and administrative law judges. This
experience taught her how to make tough decisions but also, allowed her to use
her legal knowledge to help people.
Smith then went on to work as a clerk for the Office of the General
Counsel at Rush Medical Center. She
found this particularly interesting as she able to participate in projects
based around having to handle procedures for the Ebola outbreak. Currently, Lana works at Patient Point
Enterprise, LLC. At Patient Point, she
works in IP and Contracts but more importantly, is able to work in her true
passion of transactional regulatory and compliance work.
The most exciting part of Lana’s law school career was
placing 2nd at the Health Law Regulatory & Compliance
Competition at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of
Law. Demonstrating expertise in the
field of which she is most passionate about was a very gratifying moment for
Lana. According to her, this moment in
her law school career was analogous to, “when Hermione Granger passed all of
her OWLs in Harry Potter. All of my hard
work paid off and I proved to myself as well as my colleagues that I am one of
the best at what I do.”
Lana, a staple in the DePaul College of Law mentoring
program, advises future generations of JHLI students to thirst for knowledge
and to never fear failure. In her words,
“Students should always give 110% at every project no matter what. No matter what your biggest mistake at work
is, it is important to remember that everyone makes them and you will be fine.”
After graduation, Lana, like all her fellow law school
graduates, will be preparing to take the Illinois Bar exam. Beyond these next
few months of studying, she hopes to work in health care regulation and
compliance in the Chicago area. Congratulations Lana!