A Day in the Life of a Public Health Attorney, with Joanna Suder

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In this episode, Sujani sits down with Joanna Suder, a deputy attorney general representing the Division of Public Health for the state of Delaware. They chat about what tasks public health attorneys may be responsible for, how it was like working through the pandemic, and Joanna’s experiences writing “Pandemic for Babies”.

You’ll Learn

• How Joanna entered the field of public health law
• How health specialized law programs differ from regular law programs
• What public health law entails and what a typical day may look like for a public health attorney
• How Joanna’s workload and the cases she works on have changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic
• What other professionals Joanna collaborate with in her work
• Other paths that people specialized in health law may go on to do
• Joanna’s experience co-authoring the book “Pandemics for Babies” and how she balanced writing a book along with her regular workload 
• The importance of understanding tech in public health law
• What advice Joanna has for others who are interested in following a similar path

Today’s Guest

Joanna Suder is a Deputy Attorney General in the Civil Division of the Delaware Department of Justice. She is currently the Unit Head for the Health Law Unit and supervises a team in addition to her work representing the Secretary of the Department of Health and Social Services as well as the Division of Public Health. Joanna was the lead health attorney responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. In her ample free time, Joanna co-authors articles and children's books with her husband, an infectious disease epidemiologist. A true lawyer, Joanna wants you to know that nothing she says necessarily represents the views of the Delaware Department of Justice of the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services. 

Resources

• Listen to the previous episode with Neal Goldstein, the co-author (and Joanna’s husband!) of “Pandemic for Babies”
• Purchase “Pandemics for Babies” from the publisher or from Amazon

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