Patricia R. Hatler
Nationwide
Executive Vice President, Chief Legal and Governance Counsel
“I never raised my hand as a youngster and said I wanted to be an insurance lawyer,” Patricia R. Hatler shares good-humoredly. “But in my third year of law school at the University of Virginia, I discovered the world of healthcare law, and that started me on a trajectory.” After several years with a large firm in Philadelphia as a litigator and healthcare attorney, Hatler went in-house at Independence Blue Cross (IBC). Her plan was to stay for a while and then join a legal department at a hospital. Instead, she remained with IBC for sixteen years, eventually serving as general counsel for more than a decade. In 1999, she joined Nationwide at its Columbus, Ohio, headquarters, where today she is employed as the chief legal officer for the multi-billion-dollar insurer. In that role, Hatler heads up Nationwide’s legal, government relations, compliance, corporate governance, and corporate citizenship groups.
“Substantively, there is an overlap of issues for a health insurer and a property and casualty insurer,” she explains. “Both are highly regulated areas of the industry, and a lot of the regulation is similar. At IBC, I learned that regulatory system very well, and was able to create a robust in-house department. Joining Nationwide built on that background, and also exposed me to the financial services side of the business, which is highly regulated, but under a different set of regulatory regimes.”
Hatler’s mother was a teacher; her father was a salesman whose family was heavily comprised of educators. “While I was still in high school, my father imposed two rules,” Hatler recalls. “First, he said I could attend any college that accepted me, provided it was located outside of our home state [Kentucky]; he wanted me to see more of the world. Second, he refused to allow me to ever take a typing course. He wanted to ensure that when I started looking for a job, I would not have secretarial work to fall back on. It’s rather ironic, considering all the time I’ve spent on computer keyboards throughout my legal career. I am a self-taught typist, and some typing classes would have come in handy!”
As an undergraduate at Duke University, Hatler majored in cognitive psychology, the branch of psychology concerned with the acquisition, processing, and storing of information. She was prepared to pursue a Ph.D. and a career in academia; in the last months of her senior year, however, Hatler correctly foresaw that cognitive psychology would soon be eclipsed by neurology, and that the comparative solitude of research was not for her. After graduating, she worked as a paralegal in a firm where Hatler quickly concluded that she should become a lawyer, and it’s a decision she has not regretted.
In addition to her work at Nationwide, Hatler also serves as the 2009 – 2010 chair of the board of directors of the Association of Corporate Counsel, the world’s largest organization serving the professional and business interests of corporate attorneys. ACC members are employed by more than 10,000 organizations in more than 70 countries. Hatler joined the association in the mid-80s at about the same time she went in-house, and has remained an active member ever since. Hatler also serves on several other boards of directors, including the United Way USA and the Columbus College of Art and Design.
Throughout her career, Hatler has witnessed more and more women rise to leadership positions in the profession. “Increasingly,” she observes, “women are making sure that their voices are being heard. To succeed in a corporate setting, women cannot be afraid to put themselves out there and fully participate in the conversation.” Through her leadership and by example, Pat Hatler is blazing a trail for other women to do that—and more.
Return to MCCA® 2010 Fortune 500 Women General Counsel Survey
From the July/August 2010 issue of Diversity & Bar®