Background: Sociology major from Wake Forest who was a counselor before going to law school.

An International Focus: What makes us different from other schools is the benefit in the international realm. LSU Law Center offers a quality education – and that means a lifetime of options. If you want to be in international law, or to practice in another state, this is the place. Thanks to the common law curriculum, I’m as prepared to take the bar outside Louisiana as anyone would be from any other state school. Once you leave LSU, you can stay in Louisiana or go to 49 other states, but the reverse is hard. Or, I can practice in the rest of the world’s civil law jurisdictions.

On Health Law: I wanted to do international law, but I didn’t know I wanted to do health law until I came to LSU. Now I want to work in health law in Africa. I’ve studied health-care business and finance, hospital issues, regulatory issues, issues with pharmaceutical companies, medicare, medicaid, comparative health law when I went to the LSU Law summer program in France. There’s so much that goes into health care that I didn’t know about.

Her Summer Job: One summer I worked with the chief of the Office of Regulatory and Legal Affairs at the North Carolina State Department of Health Services. If I hadn’t been at LSU, I would have looked at only North Carolina issues. But now I have a broad perspective on code issues, international issues. When I got to work every day, I tried to figure out ways that the good of the U.S. health care system could be integrated into another country. I think I’ve found my niche.

Her Focus: I love working with regulatory issues and policies. I’m not into medical malpractice. I had Ed Richards for administrative law. I loved that class. It taught me a lot about administrative law issues. You don’t think much about law and agencies, but that’s where all the work is.

Her Future: I can see myself working at the local level. My thing is education – I’m so adamant the more people know, the better things are. In rural areas – in this country or in Africa, people don’t know their rights, what kind of questions to ask. And when you’re sick, you don’t care. Figuring out how to help people maneuver through the health care system on a local level is really fun to do.