Reuniting with her former colleagues, Kelly Cleary on Wednesday joined Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld as a partner in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office, returning to private practice from senior legal positions in the Department of Health and Human Services.

For the last three years, Cleary served as deputy general counsel at HHS and as chief legal officer for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, giving her front-line experience at agencies that are now grappling head-on with the coronavirus pandemic.