The question at the heart of the case,
says Boyle, with the Law Offices of Regina
Boyle in Sacramento, was precisely what
services were mandated for reimbursement
by Medicaid under a law passed in
1977. The question had essentially been
unresolved since then. “I’d been working
on the issue for more than 10 years without
success,” says Boyle, former director of
legal affairs at the California Primary Care
Association, who tried to get the state to
define the mandatory services. “Kathryn
made all the difference, cutting through
complicated issues, inconsistent and
often erroneous regulatory guidance, and
focusing on the most significant issues.”
Doi describes her oral argument in
front of the 9th Circuit. “It was definitely
nerve-wracking,” says the Sacramento
attorney, now with Hanson Bridgett.
“Even though it was a maze, it was
always so clear to me that B followed A;
C followed B, and so on; and if you just
logically went through all the layers, it
seemed there was really only one result.”
Which was that non-emergency dental,
podiatric and chiropractic care should
be included. Doi adds with a laugh, “But
whether other people agreed with me
was another story.”
The 9th Circuit did agree, and it was
a windfall for millions of impoverished
Californians and their community clinics
and health centers.
“They’ve been restored, but we’re still
fighting in state court over payment of
the ones that weren’t paid while we were
fighting it in court,” Doi notes.
In 2013, the case earned Doi and her
co-counselors a Hero Award from the
California Primary Care Association.
Doi, a UC Davis School of Law graduate
who represents health care providers,
typically handles disputes with the
California Department of Health Care
Services or private health plans. Her cases
involve a complex array of governing
statutes and regulations.
“I call this law for nerds,” Doi says. “It’s
kind of like tax code. You’re looking at
Medicare and Medicaid laws and their
regulations, along with the Health and
Safety Code, and maybe some other state
codes and their regulations, and then
figuring out how all of that fits together
with a contract that has allegedly been
breached. It’s exercise for the brain.
“I love it.” She pauses. “And it keeps me
up at night.”
THE STYLISHLY DRESSED, PETITE DOI
has an easy, down-to-earth manner
that belies her tenacity when it comes
to dissecting government regulations.
Sitting in the bright conference room at
Hanson Bridgett’s Sacramento office, she
seems at home and calm, especially for
someone who moved her entire practice
to this firm just a few months earlier,
after working at Murphy Austin Adams
Schoenfeld since 2007. “It was hard for
me to leave Murphy Austin,” Doi says.
“That’s where I really focused in on health
care law, and I was really happy there. But
I was also ready for a larger platform to
expand my work in this arena.”
Doi is the daughter of two UC Davis
professors: Roy Doi (microbiology), a
second-generation American whose
immigrant parents worked as farmers in
Placerville; and Joyce Takahashi (organic
chemistry), a third-generation American
whose father was an optometrist and
whose mother was a nurse.
During World War II, while Doi’s parents
were children, both sides of her family
were sent to internment camps. She
says the topic wasn’t talked about much
in her home—as was the case in many
Japanese-American families—until the
movement toward reparation took hold.
“I think that brought a lot more openness
and alleviated the sense of shame,” Doi
says. “I’m happy that now the Japanese-
American community is out there as a
voice to remind people that this can’t
happen again.”
Doi believes the internment camp
experience influenced her father’s
involvement in the civil rights movement—
as a professor at Syracuse University, he
demonstrated against the destruction of
low-income housing—and, through her
parents, her own values. She’s a longtime
supporter of the Asian Women’s Shelter
in San Francisco and also of My Sister’s
House, a battered-women’s shelter in
Sacramento. She was president of the
Asian Pacific American Law Students
Association at UC Davis, and later active
with the National Asian Pacific American
Bar Association.
Though the “family business” was
academic science, Doi studied economics
as an undergrad at Stanford. Between
her junior and senior years, however, she
interned for U.S. Rep. Norman Mineta,
later the U.S. secretary of transportation.
Doi encountered lawyers working as
legislators, staff and lobbyists. “I saw how
the law was really the foundation for how
our society operates, and that the law
was a tool that could be used to impact
policy,” she says. At the time, Doi says,
she was “a bit of an activist” in the anti-
nuclear movement, so it fit her desire to
be part of change.
At UC Davis law school, Doi finished
in the top 10 percent of her class, an
achievement that led to a clerkship with
Judge Jane A. Restani of the U.S. Court of
International Trade in New York.
After her clerkship, Doi joined the
litigation and public finance departments
at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in San
Francisco, where she spent several years
learning from partners Jeffrey White
and Steve Brick, both of whom went on
to become judges; Bill Abrams; and Jon
Streeter, who later served as president
of the state Bar. They gave Doi plenty of
courtroom practice.
“The first time I went to federal court
in 1986, I was aware that I was the only
woman and the only person of color of all
the attorneys in the room,” she recalls.
“For better or for worse, you can’t help but
think, ‘I’d better do a good job or people
are going to think that Asian women can’t
be good attorneys.’ It’s hard not to put that
pressure on yourself.”
In 1994, Doi went to work for the
state, serving with the Commission on
Judicial Performance. “That job really
opened my eyes to just how hard it is to
be a judge, because everyone was always
complaining,” Doi says with a chuckle.
“To do a good job at the commission,
everybody had to be dissatisfied with your
result—the people who complained felt
like it wasn’t hard enough, and the judges
felt like it was too hard.” A few cases were
clear-cut. One judge was removed from
office after misrepresenting himself on
his judicial application and claiming in
the courtroom that he had been awarded
a Purple Heart. “The ironic thing,” she
recalls, “was that people thought his
performance as a judge was good.”
Doi’s career path took another turn
after she had lunch with her former
contracts professor, Floyd Shimomura,
then serving as chief counsel for the
Department of Finance for Gov. Gray Davis.
She mentioned that attorneys she had
worked with at Orrick now held positions
in the administration, and he said more
lawyers were needed. So Doi submitted an
