Christine S. Vaglienti

Assistant Vice President & Senior Litigation Counsel, West Virginia University Health System

Photo by Gerri Medley/Iris Magic Photo Studio.

By Ken Magill

To Christine Vaglienti, balance is not something to be achieved but something to be adjusted on an ongoing basis.

“I think of balance not as a noun, not as a state to be achieved if I can just get myself organized enough and stay disciplined, but as a verb, like breathing,” she says. “We adjust our breathing to our activity and to the environment. When you think of balance this way, it feels less like a personal shortcoming when the balance isn’t quite right. Instead, it’s a matter of adjusting in the moment and accepting that the adjustments will be constant.”

Her philosophy on work-life balance, along with embracing the idea that life veering off plan can work out better than the plan itself, has helped Vaglienti—now the assistant vice president and senior litigation counsel for West Virginia University Health System—successfully co-parent a family of three children into adulthood while managing her career from first-generation college graduate in 1985 to the corporate legal powerhouse she is today.

Vaglienti attended the West Virginia University College of Law and graduated with her Juris Doctor in 1988. In 2004, while practicing law at the firm Flaherty Sensabaugh Bonasso in Morgantown, she received a phone call asking if she was interested in taking a newly created position as in-house litigation counsel at West Virginia University Hospitals. She was flattered but hesitant. This was not part of the plan. The plan was committing to the firm long-term despite the challenges of being on the so-called mommy track. However, after some soul searching, she decided the position was an opportunity she would regret passing up.

“I never could have imagined what the job would become,” she says. “I started in a department with the vice president of legal services; one other attorney who handled employment and policy matters; a paralegal; and a legal assistant.”

Since then, the five-person department has grown to include more than 50 people, including 21 lawyers and numerous paralegals, nurse paralegals and others providing legal services to 14 hospitals and their more than 21,700 employees. Vaglienti oversees all litigation matters filed against or by any West Virginia University Health System hospital or related entity.

“Making that leap from a clear plan to the unknown was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done, but it turned out to be the best professional decision I could have made,” she says.

According to Vaglienti, bringing litigation in-house to the extent that West Virginia University Health System has done is revolutionary. Its legal team can offer management forward-looking assessments and advice. Most large-enterprise legal structures are a three-way relationship between the enterprise—or client—the client’s insurance carrier and the attorney retained by the insurance carrier to represent the client. Under the traditional arrangement, the insurance carrier is understandably focused on the case at hand and has little or no incentive to provide forward-looking feedback to the client once the case is resolved.

“At West Virginia University Health System, our in-house attorneys see the effects of policies and processes play out in litigation matters and can quickly alert our leadership to lessons learned and offer recommendations for improvement,” says Vaglienti. “Our focus is on the case or matter, of course, but we look for ways to push that focus beyond the particular and benefit the organization as a whole.”

Vaglienti and her husband of 36 years, Richard, give back to the Morgantown community that has given them so much by supporting local charities such as the dental initiative at Milan Puskar Health Right, St. Ursula’s Food Pantry & Outreach and Interplast West Virginia Inc.

“To think that a small-town girl from Mason County can do what I’m doing—it’s beyond what I ever dreamed possible,” she says. “To be able to do it in the state where I grew up just gravy. West Virginia is home.”