Rebecca Schaefer is a partner at the firm’s Research Triangle Park office. She is a member of the health care practice group, focusing her practice on healthcare regulatory and transactional matters. Ms. Schaefer has specialized knowledge of issues affecting academic medical centers, including those related to faculty practices, clinical research, mission support, governance and privacy. She provides counseling to health systems, physician practice groups and in-house pharmacies related to strategic affiliations, joint ventures, and compliance matters.  

Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Schaefer served as an associate university counsel at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was the senior health care attorney for the UNC School of Medicine, UNC Faculty Physicians, and other health affairs schools. In this capacity, Ms. Schaefer advised campus and school-based leadership on myriad regulatory, transactional, institutional policy, and governance matters. Ms. Schaefer has counseled clients in the areas of fraud and abuse, privacy, human subjects research, and life sciences regulation. Her transactional experience includes joint ventures and physician practice acquisitions, as well as professional service, academic affiliation, timeshare, and data use agreements. Ms. Schaefer has drafted and counseled on faculty physician employment matters, including physician compensation plans, employment agreements, and restrictive covenants. Overall, her work for the university applied health care regulatory and transactional expertise to structure and facilitate various opportunities that furthered the patient care, clinical research, and medical education missions of the institution. Prior to UNC-Chapel Hill, Ms. Schaefer was in private practice with a large firm in Washington, D.C. representing clients from various sectors of the health care industry – including hospitals, medical management companies, physician groups, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, patient advocacy groups, and trade associations – on matters such as clinical trial agreements, regulatory compliance counseling, health care transactional due diligence, and the research, analysis, and compilation of legal and policy positions to comment on various agencies’ rulemaking on behalf of clients