'Values-Led' Health Law Boutique Kicks Off In Atlanta

Law360
'Values-Led' Health Law Boutique Kicks Off In Atlanta
By Emily Johnson
April 2, 2025

A pair of founders of Health Law Strategists LLC announced Wednesday they have launched a national boutique in Atlanta called Aligned Health Law LLC.

Laurice Rutledge Lambert, chief executive, and Jennifer Whitton, managing partner, have opened the firm to guide healthcare and technology clients. Whitton told Law360 Pulse that the firm began taking clients Jan. 1, but it put up its website and announced their arrival this week.

Whitton, Lambert and Kathlynn "Kathy" Butler Polvino founded Health Law Strategists in 2023. Polvino told Law360 Pulse in a statement that they "wish them the best in their new venture."

Lambert told Law360 Pulse that in opening this firm, she drew on her experience with startups who are fast-paced and growing.

"You have to have a mentality of sometimes you need to take a little bit of a leap of faith and bet on yourself and bet on the clients in order to build something to meet the need," Lambert said. "That's just a different mentality in how to build and scale."

The firm has grown to 11 attorneys in multiple states, Whitton said.

It has added partners Anna L. Sylvester and Robert E. Buckley in Atlanta, John M. Jacobs in Delaware and Meghan N. O'Brien in Chicago. The firm also has two special counsel, Rachel Dvorken in Chicago and Dena H. Medford in Connecticut.

Senior associates Rachel E. Broughton and Amanda P. Topiol are in Boca Raton, Florida, and Miami, respectively, and associate Sonal Rastogi is in Baltimore.

Whitton said the firm is based on their supporting each other and treating the practice of law as a "team sport."

"We are really trying to embody this mentality of a rising tide floats all boats," Whitton said. "Our core values are authenticity, humility, levity, receptivity and gratitude. Our team talks about these values on a daily basis and everything that we do is run through the lens of 'does this align with our values?'"

She said that approach will "revolutionize" how they offer legal services and manage their attorneys.

"It's been really powerful," she said. "I think that attorneys are tired of the grind. They're tired of firms that operate in kind of like the pie isn't big enough, the scarcity mindset, and I think that everyone who's joined us has come to us organically, and we're not growing for growth's sake and we're really focusing in on making sure that the attorneys who join us are fundamentally bought into the values that we are putting there."

The firm has no plans for an office space, Whitton said.

"We're trying to have a really competitive partner compensation plan, and part of maintaining that while still investing in associates and infrastructure is staying remote for the most part," Whitton said. "Because we are scattered across the country anyways, it works really well."

Whitton said they decided to leave Health Law Strategists after realizing they wanted to create a different boutique.

"Fundamentally we realized that we weren't fully aligned on the values, and ultimately Aligned Health Law is a values-led firm," Whitton said. "We have settled on what our values are and we're here focusing on making sure we're living those out [and] that our firm is living to its purpose."

Whitton has guided health systems, health care providers and investor-based healthcare companies and entrepreneurs, the firm said. She guides healthcare clients on statutory and regulatory requirements.

Before helping found Health Law, Whitton was a partner at Krevolin & Horst LLC and before that at BakerHostetler, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Lambert has experience heading up and managing legal and compliance matters for growing healthcare companies, the firm said. Her clients include technology-enabled healthcare services, healthcare technology and digital health companies, specialty pharmacy providers, physician practices, hospitals and health systems.

Lambert was general counsel and chief compliance officer at health system pharmacy Trellis Rx LLC. Before that, she was a partner at BakerHostetler.

She said her motivation behind the new firm is wanting to "practice in a different way."

"We set out to do something that was truly disruptive, purpose-built and values-led," Lambert said. "What we realized was we just needed a little bit of a different platform to do it."

The firm has seen a "tremendous amount of demand" even without a website so far as "clients in general are just starting to want something a little bit different," Whitton said.

"What is really interesting is that we are seeing an appetite for [clients] that have traditionally gone with firms from the Am Law 50 or the Am Law 100 to utilize sophisticated boutique health law firms that are offering white glove service, a higher touch from firm partners and who are offering at a different price point," Whitton said. "For healthcare companies, we hit those three categories really strongly."