Joy Stephenson-Laws

Joy Stephenson-Laws is founding and managing partner of Stephenson, Acquisto & Colman (SAC), the healthcare industry’s premier litigation firm. In this role, Ms. Stephenson-Laws leads a diverse team of more than 100 professionals that includes attorneys, doctors, nurses, technology and healthcare provider operations specialists. This interdisciplinary approach to representing clients such as Stanford Medical Center, UCLA Medical Center and UC Irvine Medical Center has resulted in SAC’s recovering more than $1 billion for its clients while consistently receiving high marks for client satisfaction for innovations such as SACLINK, a proprietary, interactive, paperless document management system.

Noted as a leader in health care law, regulations and administration, Ms. Stephenson-Laws has helped to establish her practice as one of the premier legal practices in the country dealing with all types of healthcare-related issues, and with the help of her partners and associates, she has recovered more than $1 billion in recoveries for her clients. Her law firm has also pioneered the development and use of an innovative and proprietary document management system to provide a higher level of efficiency in meeting her clients' needs and goals.

Throughout the course of her legal career, Ms. Stephenson-Laws has worked hard to address the issues that impact public benefits, especially as they relate to health care, and make positive changes in the industry through consumer education, advocacy and philanthropy. Along with her legal practice, she also helped establish The Bili Project, a nonprofit devoted to the effective diagnosis and treatment of biliary cancer, as well as MoJo Marketing & Media, which seeks to improve community involvement through sports and entertainment.

A 1980 graduate of Loma Linda University, Ms. Stephenson-Laws obtained her Juris Doctor from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, in 1983. She holds her admission to practice before the U.S. District Court for the Central and Eastern Districts of California and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Prior to starting her own law firm, she gained invaluable experience working with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as well as with Inland Counties Legal Services, where she focused on health care litigation.

Ms. Stephenson-Laws is an active member of The State Bar of California, the American Bar Association and the Consumer Attorneys of Los Angeles, among her other professional affiliations. Outside her legal practice, she has worked with inner city youth in Jamaica, where she introduced them to golf, and she volunteers her time with various other civic and charitable organizations in her community.