Helen Haynes - Des Plaines, IL

Helen Haynes is a contracting and health law consultant with an extensive background in contracting and healthcare law. She has practiced law for more than thirty years in the private and government sectors and has also worked in contract management and administration for the state of Washington.

Helen began her career in private practice with the firm of Trowbridge, Ide and Greenwald in Hartford, Connecticut, where she defended workers’ compensation, product liability and tort claims. In 1987 she became an assistant state’s attorney in the Civil Actions Bureau of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in Chicago, where she defended medical liability cases for several years before transitioning to transactional work, focusing on contracting and advising the county’s health facilities and public health department. She supervised the Transactions and Health Law Section for a number of years before leaving the State’s Attorney’s Office to become special counsel to the Cook County Department of Public Health and, later, to serve as associate general counsel for the Cook County Health and Hospitals System. Her work there focused on health law advisory matters and the development and drafting of contracts.

In 2015, Helen took a position with the Washington Department of Social and Health Services in Olympia, Washington. There, she served as Contract Administrator for the agency’s Behavioral Health Administration, which includes an Office of Forensic Mental Health Services, two adult psychiatric hospitals, a behavioral health facility serving children and youth, a total confinement facility treating persons adjudicated to be sexually violent predators and an expanding network of residential treatment facilities. Recently, Helen has been serving as a contracting consultant as she transitions out of her work for Washington state.

Helen has a nuanced understanding of issues relevant to the employment and contracting of health providers including licensure, medical staff and credentialing issues, and of the operational needs and performance expectations of health facilities in contracting for services.