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Pharmacist Attorney - Career Profile |
Career OverviewMost people recognize pharmacists as people who work behind the counter at the local drug store. In reality, many diverse career tracks exist for pharmacists and many of those involve dual careers. Pharmacist attorneys are excellent examples of professionals who may enjoy dual careers, by combining pharmacy and law.
Pharmacist attorneys have degrees in both pharmacy and law as standard. Generally they obtain a Bachelor of Science degree in pharmacy first, and then go on to study law at graduate level. Studying pharmacy often provides the opportunity to review pharmacy law as a subspecialty of the field, providing an opportunity to apply a totally different perspective to the practice of pharmaceutical principles.
Pharmacist attorneys apply the law to pharmacy practices. They analyze and evaluate situations pertaining to pharmacy practices from a lawyer’s perspective and determine the best course of action in the specific case.
Most pharmacy attorneys work in law offices and present themselves as specialist lawyers. They are particularly desirable employees or partners of law firms and can spend much of their professional time reviewing litigation that is pharmacy related. Pharmacist attorneys typically represent chain and independent pharmacies, including pharmacies as business entities and individual pharmacists, who, for various reasons, may be required to appear before entities such as the state pharmacy boards.
Pharmacist attorneys handle a range of issues related to pharmacies. They may handle legal issues for mail order pharmacy providers and pharmacy benefit management companies; they may represent insurance companies that insure both pharmacists and pharmacy companies and protect them against malpractice claims, which occasionally become issues.
In their capacity as attorneys, the specialist training of pharmacist attorneys is also useful to pharmaceutical manufacturers who need to review contractual and regulatory issues
Due to the nature of the work, for anyone with dual qualifications in pharmacy and law, there are excellent and diverse opportunities readily available. Pharmacist attorneys are employed by drug and medical device companies, they may represent state pharmacy associations, pharmacies, and drug companies; they may work within corporate law departments and government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration. They may handle both litigation and regulatory issues for their clients.
Universities, schools of pharmacy, and hospital legal departments may also employ pharmacist attorneys, and offer alternative career paths for these professionals to function as academics and experts within the field, teaching pharmacy law, rather than to function as practitioners.
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Career RequirementsPharmacist attorneys must meet the requirements to practice both as a pharmacist and an attorney. Typically, pharmacist attorneys complete their post-secondary education by undertaking a three or four year Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmacy, followed by a three year law degree at an accredited institution.
As both a pharmacist and as an attorney, it is useful, and, for many positions, necessary, to have practical experience and training in the relevant fields and subfields.
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Job OutlookIn general, the job outlook for pharmacist attorneys is excellent. Not only can they look forward to the expected boom within the pharmaceutical industry as a boost to their career outlook, they can enjoy the relatively stable opportunities offered to career attorneys.
For the next ten years, job growth for pharmacists is expected to be extremely strong; pharmacist attorneys can make the most of this as pharmacists with highly specialist training, making them very employable.
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Career TrackTwo general career tracks are open to pharmacist attorneys. Either the pharmacist attorney practices law that relates to pharmaceuticals and the general use of drugs, or the pharmacist attorney works as a pharmacist and applies their knowledge of the law to do their job.
A pharmacist who uses the law in their work may operate as a policy manager for a pharmaceuticals company, for example. They may also apply their specialist knowledge to work in medical insurance, which is a field very much influenced by pharmaceuticals and drug use. Pharmacist attorneys are typically eligible and qualified for pharmacy manager positions on the basis of their advanced degrees.
Similarly, a lawyer who specializes in pharmaceuticals may represent pharmacists and pharmaceutical companies, or they may apply their knowledge of pharmaceuticals to undertake certain kinds of cases; cases related to medical malpractice, for example.
With several years of experience practicing as both an attorney and a doctor of pharmacy, teaching positions, administrative positions, and specialist research positions may become accessible to qualified and interested candidates.
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CompensationPharmacy attorneys are both pharmacists and attorneys with specialist knowledge and skills. They can generally earn above average salaries in either field. For a pharmacist, an average salary amounts to approximately $85,000 per year.
An attorney generally expects to earn between $80,000 and $120,000 on average. The typical earning capacity of a pharmacist attorney is somewhere between the averages for a pharmacist and for an attorney.
Benefits are excellent in most cases, and include paid vacation time, disability insurance, retirement funding, medical and dental coverage.
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