Represents major nonprofit health care systems, executives, skilled nursing facilities, labs and other health care clients in litigating FCA actions and responding to government investigations.
Advises clients on a wide variety of regulatory, policy and transactional matters, with a focus on fraud and abuse.

Emily is an associate in the health care & life sciences practice, where she represents major nonprofit health care systems, executives, skilled nursing facilities, labs and other health care clients in litigating False Claims Act actions, responding to government investigations and navigating matters involving fraud and abuse laws, including the False Claims Act, Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute. Emily also advises clients on matters related to Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement, blocking and interoperability, billing and coding, and physician compensation.

Prior to joining the firm, Emily was a research assistant at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she focused on gynecological cancer research and navigating institutional and federal regulations on data privacy and human subjects research.

During law school, Emily was a Harlan Fiske Stone and Kent Scholar and served as editor-in-chief of the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review. She also interned with the U.S. Department of Justice Vaccine Litigation Unit, where she drafted reports conceding, contesting or settling claims made through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

Emily was a member of Akin’s 2019 summer associate class.

Representative Work

Represented Fillmore Capital Partners and other owners or affiliates of Golden Living in a lawsuit alleging its 273 nursing home facilities breached the FCA by causing the facilities to not have sufficient staff to bill for the level of care they claimed and to provide substandard care. The plaintiff-relator (relator) contended that this practice included tens of thousands of claims and over one hundred million dollars in damages but could not identify a single instance in which the practice allegedly occurred. The district court ruled that the relator did not provide sufficient detail to support the claim. The Third Circuit affirmed, ruling that relator failed to specify how these facilities presented false claims to the government under Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(b) and failed to state a plausible claim under Fed. R. Civ. P 12(b)(6). Reported Decisions: U.S. ex rel. Hunter v. Fillmore Cap. Partners, LLC, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41806 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 11, 2024); United States v. Fillmore Cap. Partners, LLC, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 7502 (3rd Cir. Apr. 1, 2025).
Represented a Golden Living nursing facility before the Fifth Circuit, where the relator alleged that the nursing facility submitted false claims because it employed an unlicensed nurse. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling at summary judgment that under CMS’s own rules, the license never became invalid, and that the relator’s action was meritless. Reported Decision: U.S. ex rel. Jehl v. GGNSC Southaven, LLC, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 33584 (5th Cir. Dec. 6, 2022).