Ashley Yen was in kindergarten when her teacher told the class to draw a picture of themselves and what they wanted to be when they grew up.
“I remember drawing in crayon a little stick figure of myself in a suit wearing glasses and holding a briefcase,” Yen said. “I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer.”
That was 1998. Today, Yen is associate in-house counsel for Methodist Health System and the healthcare company’s youngest assistant vice president. She is also one of the most important lawyers in North Texas in the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic.
From the day the Center for Disease Control issued its initial coronavirus warning for U.S. hospitals, Methodist engaged with Yen and the legal team on a plethora of legal issues and regulatory procedures. For example:
- Yen identified and helped implement the constantly changing guidelines and regulations issued by the federal, state and local governments;
- She was a lawyer who assisted the hospital’s emergency Covid-19 Task Force as needed and was responsible for quickly revising policies to ensure the safety of employees, including policies relating to visitors and end-of-life matters;
- She was tasked with drafting and implementing temporary policies that would protect Methodist employees from Covid-19;
- Methodist added Yen to its internal CARES Act Task Force to advise hospital senior leadership on how the emergency funds would affect Methodist and identify the proper ways to use the funds to further assist patients under the hospital’s care; and
- She played a critical role in making Methodist one of the first hospitals in Texas to have its front-line medical workers receive the Pfizer vaccine.
“It has not been an easy task during the pandemic being an in-house lawyer at a healthcare system that has over 90 locations across Texas,” said Ben. E. Keith Assistant General Counsel Punam Kaji.
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“In addition to her normal workload, Ashley has been a key player in assisting with all of the new Covid-19 issues that have popped up and continue to pop up around the system – on not just a day-to-day basis but rather an hour-to-hour basis,” Kaji said. “Additionally, as Covid-19 never sleeps or stops, the work of hospital staff, including lawyers like Ashley, never stop either.
“She is on call 24/7 for any issues that may arise, and as Covid-19 has worsened these issues have become more frequent,” she said.
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Yen a finalist for the 2020 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Award for Rookie of the Year. Yen has been a lawyer at Methodist for only two years.
The finalists of the awards will be honored and the winners announced at an in-person ceremony at the George Bush Institute on June 3.
“Ashley was tasked with ensuring that the consent process related to the vaccine roll out was in compliance with all regulations and guidance documents released by the state,” said Hanna Kim, a lawyer in the Dallas office of the Zelle law firm. “Through her hard work in getting these documents pulled together in a short turnaround period, Methodist became the first hospital in North Texas to administer the vaccine.”
While the pandemic occupied a significant amount of time, Yen notes that her other daily responsibilities were not put on hold.
Yen led the transactions team in the acquisition of a new physician group – a deal that officially closed in October. She also played a critical role in the opening of Methodist’s fifth wholly owned hospital in Midlothian.
“Not meaning to sound dramatic, but Covid-19 has impacted just about everything, and that’s still an understatement,” Yen told The Texas Lawbook. “However, even when the world was constantly changing during the pandemic, Methodist’s mission to improve and save lives through compassionate quality healthcare still remained the same.”
Lawyers who work with Yen are amazed that she is only four years out of law school and that she has already become one of the leading healthcare lawyers in Texas.
“Health law can be a complicated area given the myriad of regulatory issues applicable to the industry,” said Debbi Johnstone, a partner at Norton Rose Fulbright. “Ashley invests the time to fully understand the issues in order to navigate the complexities of the law with the goal of providing Methodist Health System advice that supports both its business and compliance objectives.”
Brandon Kulwicki, a partner at Hall Render, said Yen is impressive because of her thirst for knowledge and because she “isn’t afraid to reach out or admit when she does not know something.
“Often times, as lawyers – especially young lawyers – we feel as though we have to know everything and provide instantaneous responses,” Kulwicki said. “Ashley is not afraid to take the time to find the correct response or ask for assistance. As a leader, it is important to know your strengths and where you need help. Ashley has a brilliant legal mind but possesses the humility to know when to let others excel.”
Yen’s path to becoming a lawyer can be traced back to her parents, Martin and Judy Yen, who migrated from Taiwan to the U.S. in 1980.
Martin Yen was 20 and had been studying to become a lawyer in Taipei when his parents gave him $500 and told him to go to the U.S. with his wife. They arrived at the Port of Baltimore with a student visa in hand but with the dream of staying in America, becoming a lawyer and raising a family.
“When he got to America, he was told by various other lawyers and even family members that he would never make it as a lawyer because he was Asian and barely knew the English language,” Yen said of her father. “They told him what he really needed to do was go into a ‘safe’ field like engineering. He decided to follow their advice and gave up on his dream of ever becoming a licensed lawyer.
“Being able to achieve my dad’s dream has undoubtedly played a role in my decision in becoming a lawyer,” she said.
Martin Yen obtained a master’s degree in computer science and became a software engineer. While he was in school, Judy Yen worked as a waitress at a Chinese restaurant and raised their three children. After her children were grown, she went back to college for an accounting degree and became an accountant.
“When I was a young angsty 14-year-old teenage girl, I remember always trying to fight against my dad’s lawyer-esque logical arguments and hypotheticals,” she said. “So I’d like to think he was unconsciously priming me to always become a lawyer. To this day, I still think my dad is one of my most formidable opposing counsel.”
Yen’s mother told her three daughters that they could only choose three professions: doctor, lawyer or dentist.
“All of which required an advanced degree,” she said. “As my other sister was already in dental school at the time, I remember thinking that the only options left for me were lawyer or doctor. I took organic chemistry and concluded that if I continued taking science classes like these for another 10-plus years, life may end up looking pretty horrendous.
“So, I interned during one of my summers at a solo practitioner’s law office, and my type-A personality immediately fell in love with the legal profession,” she said.
Yen received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Rice University and then graduated cum laudefrom the SMU Dedman School of Law in 2017.
During the summer of her first year of law school, Yen did a legal internship at Hewlett-Packard.
“It was from my experiences there that I realized that a lawyer’s role could be more than just arguing with other lawyers or going to court, which is what I thought at that time were the only things that lawyers really did,” she said. “At HP, I saw that an in-house lawyer gets to help a wide variety of business units and to be an integral part of a company’s culture. In particular, I liked the idea of only having one client who you are able to devote all of your time and energy to and that you get to collaborate together on one team.”
Over the next two years of law school, Yen did internships at TXU, Rug Doctor, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Sun Holdings and Allegro Development Corporation.
Yen said the internships provided her with an understanding of how business units view and interact with their in-house legal departments.
“I was also able to see that when in-house counsel and business units work well together, it creates this unstoppable synergy that benefits everyone involved,” she said. “Doing all of these internships generally taught me that you really shouldn’t give up on your dreams – no matter what anyone else says.
“I was told numerous times by various people that it would be nearly impossible and actually not advisable for me to go in-house right out of law school because you receive ‘necessary’ training at a firm,” she said. “While I do not disagree that going to a firm gives a young lawyer great training, there is always more than one way to receive training. Being able to work on so many actual in-house projects during my internships, I was able to fine tune my in-house counsel skills and gain the applicable experience that I needed to successfully go in-house.”
Upon graduation, Yen spent two years at Alliance Family of Companies, which gave her a first taste of the healthcare industry.
In February 2019, she joined the legal department at Methodist, which has four attorneys.
“I fell in love with the nuances and complexity of healthcare law while at Alliance and couldn’t pass on the opportunity to apply and grow my knowledge in a bigger healthcare setting,” she said.
MHS has a network of 12 full-service hospitals, more than 50 primary care and specialty clinics and other various entities like surgical and imaging centers.
Then, the world of healthcare was turned upside down in March 2020.
“This pandemic has truly been an unprecedented time,” she said. “There wasn’t a plethora of case law or other guidance that we could turn to while interpreting each legal issue that arose from the administration of the vaccine. It required a great deal of heavy and time-consuming analysis. Being able to assist with one of the most exciting and impactful things that will hopefully end this Covid-19 pandemic will definitely be one of those achievements in my career that I’ll never forget.”
Methodist was one of the first hospitals in Texas to receive the vaccine.
“We wanted to get the vaccines rolled out as quickly, safely and efficiently as possible,” she said. “A Covid-19 vaccine was still just a rumor. But we knew it was coming soon. We needed to make sure that we had the necessary documents and consents in place to administer the vaccines. Because the time period between the FDA authorization approval and receipt of the vaccines was so short, we worked hard to ensure that all individuals who elected to take the vaccine received the necessary documents to make an informed decision.”
Yen said the CARES Act provided much-needed money to healthcare entities as they worked to respond to the pandemic.
“Every dollar generally has a string attached to it, and those strings include a lot of dense language with terms and conditions that needs to be reviewed and interpreted,” she said.
Kulwicki, the Hall Render partner, said Yen puts time and effort into the tasks that she needs to complete.
“She has shown tremendous growth – even during the pandemic, when it would be easy to let your knowledge or skills atrophy,” he said. “She has instead made great leaps to ensure that her knowledge base is always advancing.”