LEGAL DEPARTMENT OF THE YEAR University of Miami Aileen Ugalde, general counsel at the University of Miami, is responsible for all the legal issues — and more — that come up at a private college with 17,000 students and 14,000 employees. Outside regulators range from the NCAA for Division I athletics to the state Board of Medicine for doctors at the university's teaching hospital. Ugalde, who was hired as an associate general counsel in 1994, staffed the search committees that recruited successive UM Presidents Donna Shalala and Julio Frenk. She noted both served as health ministers in their home countries — the United States for Shalala and Mexico for Frenk — before reaching Coral Gables.  "There are very few areas of the law that are not in some way or another coming through our office. That is part of the charm of this work," said Ugalde, who has been GC since 2006. "The vantage point that I've had at the university has been very special." The legal department of seven attorneys is a diverse mix including three women, three Hispanics and one African-American. The department relies on a mix on in-house and outside counsel. Internal expertise addresses finance, real estate leases and acquisitions, licensing, information technology, copyright, trademark, hospital affiliations and physician practice groups, employment and talent management. The university does not maintain a closed stable of outside attorneys and has no predetermined time frame for recruiting and reviewing them, but the department customarily hires law firms for specialized expertise, for instance, on tax, bond, zoning and NCAA matters.  "There's a hundred ways to do this," Ugalde said. "We stay lean. We do a lot inside. But for the more specialized stuff, I think it's better to go outside." Ugalde gushes enthusiastically about her job, her department and the university, but the stage isn't set for showboating. "If you like getting credit for your work, this is not the job to pursue," Ugalde said. "Some of our best work people never hear about."   OUTSIDE COUNSEL MANAGEMENT  Ilumno The legal department at the Coral Gables-based virtual education company is small with a total of five attorneys in the United States and Latin America. But the team works as a unit to complete large strategic projects on a timely basis while managing scarce resources. And institutional objectives included a corporate restructuring executed in 2017. In late 2016, Ilumno began to realign its corporate structure with a pivoting business strategy. The legal department led the project, managing and coordinating with legal and tax professionals to complete the effort on tight deadlines. The attorneys led by general counsel Diana P. Abril spent days and nights drafting, reviewing, negotiating and executing hundreds of documents to make the transition possible. Abril, who joined the company in 2012, was focused on coordinating the work among the various actors, and the legal work exceeded the expectations of the management team and board. Outside counsel at Carlton Fields, which assisted on a second phase of the restructuring, helped Ilumno with additional staff for the project. Abril is a former Carlton Fields corporate and tax associate. One of the greatest compliments the Ilumno team received came from the firm's billing partner, who said the two U.S. lawyers handled the work of seven attorneys. The first phase required asset and share transfers, distributions, contributions, tax restructurings, and entity formations and liquidations. The restructuring extended to 11 jurisdictions and more than 20 entities in the Americas, Caribbean and Europe. Corporate and tax law issues were the most complicated. The company collaborated with local counsel and tax professionals in far-flung jurisdictions to achieve the desired results. The second phase included a merger, the liquidation of some entities and the creation of several new ones. It also involved a large number of inter-company agreements that were drafted, negotiated and implemented to support the new structure and continued operations. Ilumno ended up with a more streamlined structure, a new business strategy, the reduction of risks inherent in the prior structure and a more beneficial tax treatment. "It's been a huge learning experience to work for such a dynamic company of seasoned professionals," Abril said. "But to be able to work towards our vision of expanding access to quality education is the cherry on top." The company serves 17 schools of higher education institutions with almost 254,000 students and 12,000 academics and administrative staff in 10 Latin American countries.   CORPORATE COMPLIANCE Memorial Healthcare System

When it comes to protected patient health information, Memorial Healthcare System is regulated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPAA, and the Florida Information Protection Act, or FIPA.

Collectively, these laws and regulations set the privacy and security standards for health care providers.

Caregivers at MHS must have access to protected patient health information to provide informed, quality care. But they may not access any patient's protected information for reasons unrelated to their job duties or without patient consent.

Sometimes the line between patient care and a technical violation can be blurry across more than 20 locations where services offered by the nation's second largest public health care provider range from urgent care to surgical hospitalization.

To help educate employees on privacy issues and law, the legal department led by Kimarie R. Stratos, senior vice president, general counsel and chief privacy officer, worked with the information technology, privacy and marketing departments to create an education campaign and to implement a new database to enable MHS to more closely monitor activity in patients' electronic health records.

To work around email fatigue, the public hospital system used its intranet and screensaver technology to distribute innovative, short and impactful videos about HIPAA and FIPA and protecting patient privacy and confidentiality. IT pushed the videos on the intranet, the computer screensaver system and the closed-circuit televisions located throughout the system. Marketing uploaded the videos to YouTube. The first video focuses on well-intentioned snooping and a second one on identity theft.

Late last year, MHS also implemented FairWarning, a program that monitors, tracks and audits activity in patients' electronic health records. MHS has averaged 200 log-ins per month in the program and, in the initial four months, investigated 93 alerts generated by the system. Nearly 90 percent of the alerts were false positives, but the MHS privacy and human resource departments spoke with all employees tied to each alert. The process reinforces a consistent message on MHS monitoring activity, electronic health records and patient privacy protection with caregivers, vendors and business associates. The message to employees is clear: MHS has zero tolerance for snooping. If you access the system outside of your job responsibilities, you will be caught. Since the introduction of the videos, the privacy department has seen an increase in inquiries from viewers with HIPAA and FIPA-related questions.   DIVERSITY OF QUALITY OF LIFE Miami Gardens City Attorney's Office

The city attorney's office strives to ensure its office is diverse and its employees enjoy a work-life balance while servicing the legal needs of the city.