Gina Bertolini has been appointed chief counsel for health affairs at Emory Healthcare, effective September 1, 2025. Bertolini is a health care attorney with more than two decades of experience representing hospitals and health care systems.
Bertolini will lead the legal team that represents Emory Healthcare. According to Joon S. Lee, MD, executive vice president for health affairs of Emory University and CEO of Emory Healthcare, “Gina is an accomplished health care legal executive with a wealth of experience in academic medicine and health care legal practice. We look forward to the knowledge and collaborative mindset she will bring to our enterprise.”
Before joining Emory, Bertolini was a partner at K&L Gates in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, where she worked in the Health Care Practice Group representing providers across the country. She previously served as deputy general counsel at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for Michigan Medicine and as associate general counsel with the University of North Carolina Health System in Chapel Hill. Her legal career began as a law clerk to U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Jenkins.
“I am thrilled to be joining Emory’s Office of General Counsel, which has and will continue to provide exceptional legal services to Emory Healthcare,” says Bertolini. “I am also honored to join the Emory Healthcare leadership team, providing legal guidance as Emory Healthcare builds on its rich tradition of improving lives through compassionate patient care, clinical innovation and exceptional medical education.”
Bertolini holds a bachelor’s degree from DePaul University in Chicago and earned her law degree from University of California Hastings College of Law (now U.C. Law San Francisco).
She succeeds Elizabeth (Beth) Clark Morrison, who has served as interim chief counsel for health affairs since September 2023. Morrison will take on a similar leadership role for Emory University while continuing her work managing faculty, resident and employment issues for both the School of Medicine and Emory Healthcare.
“I am grateful to Beth for her outstanding leadership as interim chief counsel for health affairs for the past two years,” says Lee. “We have relied on Beth’s thoughtful guidance and skill during this time, and I know she will excel in her next legal role working with the broader Emory community.”
