Debra J. Albin-Riley

LOS ANGELES - Debra J. Albin-Riley is a partner at Arent Fox Schiff LLP focused on health care litigation. She often first-chairs medical staff peer review hearings and serves as lead trial lawyer in complex medical staff and hospital-related trials and appeals. She joined the Arent Fox firm in 2008; it merged with Schiff Hardin LLP in March 2022.

Last year, she became chair of the board of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles.

Albin-Riley's litigation sector has been busy. "Over the last year, we've seen an uptick because hospitals had been so focused on Covid. When that eased, they found a lot of issues had been unaddressed while their attention was elsewhere," she said. "In peer review litigation, they took corrective action against disruptive physicians."

Medical institutions' efforts to rein in undisciplined professionals has occupied Albin-Riley's professional life during a long campaign that hit a milestone in August 2022, when she obtained a state appellate panel's ruling in favor of her health care system client. "It is a victory for hospitals and medical staffs as it preserves anti-SLAPP protection for a number of peer review activities," she said. Bonni v. St. Joseph Health System, G052367 (4th DCA, op. filed Aug. 23, 2022).

The opinion came after the state Supreme Court granted Albin-Riley's petition for review and reversed an unfavorable opinion. The issue was a surgeon's claim that the hospital unlawfully retaliated against him by suspending his staff privileges and then terminating him for raising concerns about patient care. A trial court judge granted the hospital's anti-SLAPP motion, holding that its deliberations during the peer review process were protected, and granted the hospital's substantial attorney fees. An appellate panel reversed. After Albin-Riley argued to the high court last year, the justices largely agreed with her and sent the matter back to the Court of Appeal.

"We're very pleased that the Court of Appeal now has ruled that the peer review process -- including meetings and reports and settlement discussions -- is absolutely protected and cannot be the subject of retaliation claims," said Albin-Riley, who argued the matter on remand in June. "This process is so important for patient safety. Final decisions themselves can be subject to retaliation claims, but the speech-like process of getting there is protected."

The case now returns to the Orange County trial court for further proceedings. "The Court of Appeal decision will be very helpful to us," Albin-Riley said.

"Everyone on a hospital's staff has to be free to speak out about substandard patient care without fear of being sued," she added. "We have now resurrected protections that were in danger of being lost."