How this Brandeis student is balancing law school and a full-time career

To say Lori Frey Wells’ path to Brandeis Law was a winding one would be an understatement.

Wells, who will graduate from Brandeis this December, has been working full-time at health insurance company Humana the entire time she’s been in law school.

Eight years and several career moves — including a year in Texas — after undergrad, Wells knew law school was in her future.

“I just really wanted to help people,” she said. “That was the driving force for me.”

Her decision to go to law school was met with a mixed reaction from family and co-workers.

“Everybody kind of thought I was crazy because I was on a trajectory at Humana,” she said. “But it was that passion in me that made me want to follow my heart.”

She enrolled at Northern Kentucky University’s Chase College of Law in its part-time evening program. For a year and a half, she and a friend carpooled the hour and a half to NKU several times a week.

After getting a new position at Humana with more flexibility, Wells transferred to Brandeis Law in January 2015.

Wells started at Humana in the Medicare Risk Adjustment (MRA) Department. She’s now the risk advisor for MRA in the Medicare Regulatory Compliance, working closely with that area’s legal counsel.

“It’s really a combination of understanding the law and understanding the business,” she said of her current position, which is J.D.-advantaged.

Her law school studies have helped her “distill lots of information and complicated regulations into what the business needs to know.”

And Wells took a health care law course this summer through iLaw, which provides online J.D., post-J.D. and non-J.D. programs.

“That gave me an even bigger boost of confidence,” she said.

As for juggling a full-time career with the rigors of law school?

Time management is key, Wells said.

She set the expectation early with her family and friends that her time would be limited while she was in school, and said she is fortunate to have a supportive husband.

“It’ll be interesting to see what our lives are like when I’m not in law school,” she said.