About

Healthcare company Optum is part of UnitedHealth Group (UHG).  Whilst UHG has been in Ireland for almost 20 years, its Dublin presence has expanded recently and its in-house legal team is no different. Miriam Caley, head of legal and a former associate at Matheson and Freshfields Bruckhaus Derinnger, explains the pace of growth at the business: ‘From having no lawyers and no legal department in Ireland, we now have grown to a team of five within six months, which has been very intense’. A significant portion of recent work for the team has been in relation to the imminent arrival of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), compliance to which is a must for the company. ‘As we are a big data company, preparation for the GDPR is as important for us as it would be for Google’, Caley says. Having transitioned relatively recently into in-house legal work, Caley comments on the major differences between in-house and private practice work, and what someone who does this can expect. ‘The variety of knowledge needed and the ability to network can be tricky at first: when in private practice, you aim to be a specialist in a legal area, in my case private and public M&A. Now I am required to know enough about various areas of law so that I can make an informed decision when to get into the detail. As Optum is an international healthcare company, healthcare law and looking across jurisdictions is relevant, too.  The variety of legal work in-house means that no day is the same and every day is exciting and challenging at the same time. Ultimately, I think the ability to tap into different legal subjects very quickly and the ability to make relationships both within the business and externally are important skills an in-house counsel should have’, Caley sums up.