The Daily Business Review recognizes seven in-house legal departments for their proven success on behalf of their companies. The departments and two On the Rise attorneys will be honored for their unique strategies and out-of-the-ordinary accomplishments along with other Professional Excellence Award recipients at a May 23 recognition event at the Rusty Pelican in Miami.   LEGAL DEPARTMENT OF THE YEAR WELLCARE HEALTH PLANS INC. WellCare Health Plans has been on a growth tear for two years since the arrival of Anat Hakim as general counsel and corporate secretary. Coming from Chicago-based Abbott Laboratories, Hakim coordinated five acquisitions including the largest in company history when it took over Meridian companies in Illinois and Michigan plus a Meridian pharmacy benefit manager. The acquisition of the Meridian companies and Aetna's Part D prescription drug business required financing, which included WellCare's first public offering in 12 years. Revenue at the Tampa-based publicly traded health care company is up 20% to $20.4 billion in the last two years. In addition, Hakim overhauled much of the legal department's staff and inner workings, and placed major expenses on a quarterly review schedule. Most of the outside counsel spend goes to litigation, employment, corporate and regulatory. A preferred provider list was created along with a national litigation coordinating counsel program to build a competitively priced local counsel panel. The outside counsel options shrunk from 50 law firms to 17 key firms. "The firms that play well with others succeed with us," Hakim said. "The firms we use the most now are the ones that essentially consider themselves extensions of our department." As a result of all the changes, outside counsel cost 16 percent less in 2017. Excluding unanticipated costs, the expense came in 10% under budget in 2018. Blended rates are used for most litigation and are subject to quarterly review, and WellCare attorneys meet with law firms to discuss rates for the coming year. A monthly retainer with a collar applies to many nonlitigation matters and can be compared to a projected hourly rate expense quarterly. As part of the corporate transformation, WellCare's legal department integrated new technology including an electronic document management system, converted from a manual to electronic system for licensing, adopted a metrics dashboard, and expanded the use of videoconferencing and its SharePoint platform for announcements, discussions boards and calendars. The department chose a preferred e-discovery provider with analytics tools and negotiated a flat fee. Hakim passes along credit to her 25-member team with over half outside Tampa. Twenty are new since she joined. "I wanted to make sure we were hiring the best talent, and I didn't want to artificially exclude talent outside Tampa," she said. "When you have great talent, they're able to produce in ways that you're seeing." OUTSIDE COUNSEL MANAGEMENT JPAY INC. Miramar-based JPay Inc. offers electronic services ranging from money transfers to tablets and e-books to prisoners in corrections settings in 34 states. "Given we provide this wide array of services, natrually we're going to have litigation arise out of this wide array of services," said general counsel Jessica Camuffo. The litigation ranges from class actions to lawsuits filed by individual inmates. A recent settlement involved a class action on video visitation services, a preliminary settlement has been reached in a class arbitration, and a court detour in litigation over JPay's money-transfer business is back in class arbitration. When Camuffo is developing the department's annual budget, she'll "evaluate where we're spending money and whether the returns are worth it." "So far, I've been pretty lucky in most of the counsel I use," she said. In a recent exception, she transferred an individual inmate's case to a different firm with more experienced lawyers. Case assessments come up more frequently as well. Camuffo evaluates progress on status conference and strategy calls, and "basically I read everything they do, that they file. I'm very involved," she said. "I guess they would say I'm a pain." On the cost-control side, she'll set caps on one-time assignments, like a privacy policy review. Litigation costs are much tougher to gauge, and she focuses on hourly rates on engagement letters. She also oversees the compliance side of anti-money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act programs. All told, seven employees report to her.   TECHNOLOGY BRUCE GENDELMAN CO. INC. You might forgive Matt Kissner if it seems like he has a split personality. He is general counsel for Bruce Gendelman Co. Inc., a specialty insurance brokerage, and Gendelman's family, which extends to Daniel Gendelman, founder of the exclusive creative industry-oriented dating and networking app Raya. What both have in common is a serious need for cybersecurity. The Palm Beach-based insurance brokerage with 65 employees serves high net worth clients and their businesses with agents working remotely nationwide. "I handle all of the legal matters for the company, and that is everything from claims management and assisting our clients who have insurance claims. Our company is really kind of a concierge, high-end service," said Kissner, who runs a one-man legal department. He is responsible for contracts, employment issues and transactional work, moving in house last July after representing the company on corporate and transactional work at Broad and Cassel. Los Angeles-based Raya App LLC launched in 2015 as an membership-based network where only 8% of applicants are accepted. For both the insurance company and the app, security and confidentiality are crucial. "We work with affluent clients. We face attacks frequently, whether it's in trying to access our bank accounts or impostors" attempting email intrusions from lookalike accounts. "We regularly face, as I'm sure a lot of companies do, cyberattacks." At Raya, "they've really locked that down," Kissner said. "The top priority for Raya is confidentiality of the members, protecting their information." As a small company, it relies on its bankers at JPMorgan Chase and Applied Systems Inc., a cloud-based insurance management software, to customize its safeguards and layers of protection.   PRO BONO/COMMUNITY SERVICE CABLE & WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS Ruchi Kaushal was general counsel at Cable & Wireless Communications for only a few months when much of the Coral Gables-based telecommunications provider's market in the Caribbean was struck by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. The mother of two was advised by a Hurricane Andrew survivor to evacuate before Irma, and the family headed to Toronto when Irma blew through South Florida in 2017. Meanwhile, a sister company in Puerto Rico was decimated, and at least six island markets were hurting. In three days, Kaushal and colleagues in C&W's 50-member legal department set up the structure of a U.S. foundation to serve hurricane victims, and she sits on its board. "It made the team really strong, and it gave us a sense of purpose as a company," she said. "We are integral to people's lives." The first need was reconnecting families by phone followed by emergency relief. "We are the local people on the ground, so it's your local country managers that are going to tell you where the need is the greatest," Kaushal said. The Liberty Latin America subsidiary partnered with Richard Branson's Virgin Unite and the Rotary Club on relief work. Next up was emergency housing in the form of tents resembling igloos. As the months passed, the new foundation raised more than $1.5 million and committed $1 million. The focus of the Cable & Wireless Charitable Foundation now is turning to resilience — preventing destruction from future storms, for instance, by reinforcing schools. "Disaster relief will always be a big part of our foundation's goal," she said. "But I think the shift is going to be now empowering societies within these markets."   CORPORATE COMPLIANCE ADVANCED RECOVERY SYSTEMS LLC Amy Charley fills the roles of senior vice president, general counsel and chief compliance officer at Advanced Recovery Systems LLC, a behavioral health care company operating treatment centers for drug and alcohol addiction. ARS operates eight substance use inpatient facilities in five states, including one in partnership with the International Association of Fire Fighters union for first responders with those substance use disorder and PTSD, and a juvenile center for teenagers from 13 to 17. "I run a pretty robust compliance and risk management program, all the way from incident reporting to committees at the facility level and committees at the national level," she said, noting she also coordinates in-person staff training. The 800-employee company holds over 150 licenses and complies with federal and state laws on substance use disorder licensing as well as Drug Enforcement Administration requirements. Internally, "we have a variety of different committees all around the risk management and patient safety issues," Charley said. As a result of the emphasis on regulatory, she said litigation is the smallest part of her job. "When you have a good risk management and compliance program, it should mitigate risk and litigation." she said. The Fort Lauderdale attorney joined the company in 2015 from Sheridan Healthcare Inc. and has been in the health care industry for 14 years. Before that, she was with Burger King Corp. and Holland & Knight.   ON THE RISE NEFERTARI RIGSBY KAPLAN HIGHER EDUCATION Title: Employment law counsel Experience: Kaplan Higher Education, 2018-present; Reynolds American Inc., 2015-2018; Akerman, 2012-2015; Clerk to U.S. District Judge Charlene Honeywell, 2010-2011); Maynard Cooper & Gale, 2008-2009 Education: University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, 2008; Wake Forest University, 2005 What drew you to a career in law? I was a psychology major with a concentration on social psychology. Concepts like "group think" fascinated me and helped me learn about jury selection and decision-making. That research led to my piqued interest in a law career. Have you set a specific goal that you want to achieve in the next year? I'd like to obtain board certification in labor and employment or become certified as a senior professional in human resources. What has been your proudest career moment and your biggest hurdle? My proudest moment was passing my first bar exam, which was in Alabama. My parents attended the swearing-in ceremony with me in Montgomery, Alabama, not far from where they lived right after they got married. It was a very proud moment because my father noted when he lived there, black people were so segregated and treated so poorly, but he was able to come back and watch me be sworn in as an attorney. My biggest hurdle has been learning to balance personal life with work success. It is a daily challenge, but I have made great progress over the years. Where do you fit on a 1-10 work-life balance scale with 10 being nirvana? Please explain. I'd have to say a 7. Currently, I'm in a position where the legal issues and questions arise in a very dynamic and sometimes unpredictable way — you really can't make this stuff up — and often makes managing my calendar more difficult. But I've learned to make the time to be social, volunteer in civic organizations and remain connected to friends and family while doing things that I love, like traveling. It isn't always perfect, but I am managing pretty well. What is the top quality that you've used to succeed in the profession? My top quality is being amiable. Being a good-natured person will take you far in this profession because people, whether it is opposing counsel, partners and other associates, clients (both internal and external) want to work with people who are amiable. I do have to balance this quality with being stern and direct, when necessary, but I have found people are more receptive to those conversations when they know you're generally a good-natured person. Who is your favorite mentor and why? My favorite mentor is my father. He has shown me what it looks like to be a leader, an independent thinker and driven person who is not motivated by material things in life. He has always pushed me to seek more than what is in front of me. What's the best advice anyone has ever given you? If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. What trends are you observing in the profession that you're excited about? I am excited to see that there are more minorities and women in various arenas in the profession, whether it is as general counsel or partners in firms. I appreciate the fact that it is becoming more routine to see women and minorities in these roles. What is the greatest challenge you see for the legal profession? The greatest challenge I see with the legal profession is continuing to provide for opportunities for minorities and women in leadership positions. Because it is still a continuing hurdle that the profession must overcome, we must be persistent in encouraging this type of change. If I weren't a lawyer, I'd be … A human resources professional or clinical psychologist.   AUBREY LEVESQUE HEMISPHERE MEDIA GROUP INC. Career: Assistant General Counsel, Hemisphere Media Group Inc., 2015-present; Law clerk to Miami-Dade Circuit Judges Mercedes Bach and Scott Silverman, 2014-2015 Education: University of Miami, J.D., 2015; University of Tampa, B.S., 2011