“Healthcare is all I have known my entire professional life,” stated Amy Leopard.

More than halfway through her pre-law studies at Auburn, Leopard changed majors after taking a healthcare class, which she laughingly admitted to choosing because it didn’t meet on Fridays.

“I took a Hospital Administration class where we had to shadow a healthcare administrator over Spring Break,” she recalled. “I shadowed Ron Owens, the CEO of Huntsville Hospital and found myself captivated by the breadth of his role and responsibilities. That day I realized that being a hospital administrator is similar to being the mayor of a city – there are many different perspectives to an issue and many stakeholders to satisfy. I found it to be the most fascinating job ever.”

Over the next decade, Leopard earned a master’s in Health Services Administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and worked in both community hospitals and an academic medical center. Much of her work required regulatory and reimbursement knowledge, which harkened back to her original career aspiration. “I still had a yearning to be a lawyer so I decided to meld the two interests together and attended law school at Case Western Reserve University due to its tremendous health law program,” she said of the highly respected program located in Cleveland.

“I’m fond of telling people I moved to Ohio for law school and accidently stayed for 19 years,” she smiled. Actually, Leopard said the move turned out to be fortuitous for a number of reasons. Not only is the city home base for the renowned Cleveland Clinic, but it’s also where Leopard met her husband Karl Wilkens, who owns a software company that provides CME to hospitals.

Leopard’s background gives her unique insight into what her clients face, as she’s literally walked in their shoes. “Having been inside the hospital has really helped inform my practice,” she noted.

Leopard provides counsel to a range of healthcare providers, entrepreneurs and technology companies on a host of issues from payment to privacy and security rules. Leopard relishes solving complex technical problems in a highly regulated industry. “I get to help my clients find solutions and navigate the many different and dynamic healthcare laws in ways that enable them to meet their business objectives.”

While working through the labyrinth of federal and state laws can be all consuming, she loves the ever-changing nature of her field. “My husband often teases me that a new healthcare rule is like Christmas for me.”

On the flip side, Leopard noted that volatility is also the most challenging aspect of her job. “Fortunately, I am a lifelong learner,” she said. “I believe this is a required trait for any healthcare lawyer, as we are handling matters involving HIPAA and state breach reporting, Medicare billing and False Claims Act investigations every day. Health law has always been a field that changes rapidly, but what we have seen in the last five years is unprecedented.”

Hailing from Huntsville, Ala., Leopard was excited to relocate to Nashville after nearly two decades in Ohio. While Cleveland is a medical city, she said Nashville is the healthcare city. Her husband, who was raised in upstate New York, was equally willing to relocate his company further south. “He loves it here. You’d think he invented Nashville,” Leopard laughed.

She and Wilkens have a blended family of two boys, two girls and three grandkids, who range in age from two to seven. Leopard describes being grandparents to Aiden, Olivia and Addalyn Faith, as “the best job ever!” Although the grandchildren are still in Cleveland, the couple relies on Skype and frequent visits to keep up with them. “They are so much fun. It’s truly a privilege to be a grandparent because you get to have all the fun, and someone else has all the responsibility.”

Besides, grandparents give good advice. Leopard remembers her own grandmother telling her – what goes around, comes around. “The healthcare realm is a particularly small world, and it’s essential to be true to yourself and maintain your integrity,” Leopard said.

It’s advice she puts into action daily on behalf of herself, her clients and her law firm.