Nothing is as important as your health and family.
As a family health lawyer, Lisa Feldstein dedicates her practice to ensuring her clients and their loved ones are safe, healthy, and protected. Outside of the office, Lisa appreciates the importance of these touchstones in life by staying active and spending quality time with the people she loves. Practicing family health law means that Lisa is one of the first to hear about the greatest and most tragic moments of her clients’ lives. As difficult as her job can be, the happy and sad times help her to appreciate the importance of well-being and being there for her family.
Prior to law school, Lisa completed her undergraduate studies in Psychology at the University of Guelph. Her interest in psychology shaped her worldview and turned out to be very applicable to her practice of law. For instance, Lisa took a research methods course, which really fueled her work in informed consent documentation. Her background in addiction studies also allows her to understand how the brain works to recognize what clients go through. Lisa took her knowledge of psychology with her to law school and focused on health law and mental health law during her studies there.
Before starting a solo practice, Lisa practiced health law at a Toronto firm and advised hospitals, long-term care homes and other health sector organizations. Through her practice, Lisa saw a gap in the field of health law and the lack of representation caregivers were receiving. She saw that patients and institutions had legal representation, while family caregivers were left behind.
If only families knew about the principles that guided decision making, or that they had a right to information and who to ask for it, they would have a much fairer chance in the health care system. With her interest in filling this gap in family health law, combined with being raised by a family full of entrepreneurs, the idea of starting her own practice and being her own boss interested Lisa.
As a sole practitioner, Lisa now enjoys the flexibility she has in her day-to-day and the ability she has to tailor her services around fertility law and caregiver law to meet the unique needs of her clients.
Opening up shop as a a family health lawyer came with many challenges. In addition to the common obstacles that sole practitioners come across, Lisa has the unique barrier of practicing in an area that not many people are familiar with. No potential clients were googling the search term “family caregiver law” and coming across her website. It is very rare for a family caregiver to recognize that they have a legal problem, so marketing her practice can be a bit of a puzzle.
To this day, Lisa still finds herself explaining her practice to clients, but the most rewarding part of her practice is the impact she can make through educating clients. When a client walks into her office, they are often scared and confused. After an hour with Lisa, they leave her office equipped with the knowledge they need to feel empowered. Practicing fertility law, Lisa feels greatly rewarded when she hears her clients’ positive pregnancy updates.
"I help people make babies," Lisa jokes.
Despite the rewards, fertility and family health law can also be heartbreaking. As a family health lawyer, Lisa is often one of the first people to be called when family health situations don't go as planned or tragedies arise. This is one of the challenges of her practice, and something her background in psychology has helped equip her to deal with.
Aside from practicing law, Lisa is also an adjunct professor at York University and a volunteer at Prenatal Screening Ontario where she serves on the Genetics Working Group as a patient representative in the genetics working group. When she’s not working or volunteering, Lisa enjoys working out or playing the ukulele. Lisa is vegan, shops sustainably and has made it a personal mission to make this world a better place for all living things. As part of that mission, she made a goal to plant as many trees as possible this spring.
Lisa's most extensive advice to law students, aside from being healthy and active, is to be frugal with spending.
When Lisa did her LSAT course, a professor once told her, "When you are a law student, if you live like a lawyer, then when you are a lawyer, you're going to live like a law student"! Lisa encourages students to pick up part-time work on the side, if possible. Even if small sacrifices need to be made, such as not buying a designer bracelet or skipping an extra vacation, by reducing spending, students can pay off their debt much faster.
Lisa is happy to speak with law students interested in learning more about her practice. Follow Lisa on Twitter and TikTok, and subscribe to her YouTube channel to learn more about family health law topics!