Are these lawsuits shaking up veterinary medicine as we know it? Dr. Lance Roasa joins Dr. Andy Roark to break down two headline-making legal battles you’ve probably seen floating around: LMU suing the AVMA over accreditation practices and veterinary interns filing a class-action lawsuit against the MATCH program. Andy and Lance dig into the arguments on both sides, explore the bigger forces at play (like venture capital and consumer demand), and debate what all this means for the profession’s future. You’ll walk away with a clear understanding of the nuances, a few surprises about who really benefits, and plenty to think about regarding access, gatekeeping, and patient care. Let’s get into this episode.
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ABOUT OUR GUEST
Dr. Roasa is a 2008 graduate of Texas A&M who has practiced in small
animal, mixed animal and emergency settings and has bought, operated and sold
over a dozen veterinary practices. He has completed a law degree from the
University of Nebraska, is the past president of the American Veterinary Medical
Law Association.
Dr. Roasa is a consultant for VIN and is a founder of Drip Learning
Technologies, a veterinary continuing education provider. He also lectures in 13
veterinary colleges on the legal aspects of employment contracts, medical
recordkeeping, veterinary malpractice and veterinary business as part of the
curriculum. He serves as a national co-advisor to the Veterinary Business
Management Association and regularly lectures to regional VBMA chapters and to
the national association on the topics of growth, business metrics, and technology
implementation.
Dr. Roasa also owns Santa Rosa Ranch, home to the largest registered
Brangus cow herd in the United States.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Andy Roark: Welcome everybody to the Cone of Shame Veterinary podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark I am here with my friend Dr. Lance Roasa who is a practicing lawyer. He is a DVM. He is also the principal, attorney and founder at the Roasa Law Group, which is a law group that only works with veterinarians.
So, we talk about that and what that’s like. But I’ve got a couple of lawsuits that I’m seeing that I just wanna understand a bit better. And there’s really two of them today that I wanna talk about. The first one is LMU Lincoln Memorial University suing the AVMA and what that is about. And then the second one is veterinary interns, launching a class action lawsuit against the match program and some of the vet schools. And so anyway those are the two lawsuits that I’m seeing. I’m kinda like, I don’t know which I exactly like to make of these. And so Lance is gonna come in, he breaks sort of both of those cases down and just talks about why they’re happening, what the argument is what seems valid and what seems kind of shaky. And I’ll tell you in both cases, I leave the episode feeling a bit differently than I did going in and with a much deeper understanding of the nuances of what’s happening here. So anyway, I do love talking to Lance.
I push him a little bit. I start to talk to him about what’s driving these lawsuits. You know, we argue a little bit about, good old boy networks and venture capitalists and all of those sorts of things. And I think Lance has got a nice, healthy view about what’s probably going on and, and I don’t think it’s an overall sweeping conspiracy.
I think, every case is a little bit different and it’s happening for slightly different reasons. And so anyway, really great episode and insight into what’s going on in our profession right now. Let’s get into it.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter: This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to the Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark.
Andy Roark: Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Lance Roasa. How are you my friend?
Lance Roasa: I’m doing well, Dr. Roark. How are you today?
Andy Roark: Man, I’m doing great. It is so good to have you back on the podcast. You know, I had you on a number of times before. I always appreciate talking with you. You, for those who don’t know, have such an interesting background. You are a veterinarian.
You have a DVM, you are also a lawyer, you have a JD you have been a practice owner. You have also owned an enormous cattle ranch fairly until fairly recently. And now you are the, principal, attorney and founder at Roasa Law Group, and you do exclusively law and you do exclusively veterinary law.
So tell me real quick, what are the types of services that you end up spending most of your time on?
Lance Roasa: Yeah, we, thanks Andy, and thanks for having me on. I, you know, I always really enjoy visiting with you and talking with you. Yeah, so we do only veterinary law, so we practice 100% for veterinarians. You know, we’ve got, you know, several associate attorneys and, you know, paralegals and, and like that, that do a great job.
But about half of what we do, 30 to 40, 50% of what we do are people getting into contracts. So we help them with their contract as they’re entering in. There’s another 30 or 40% where we help people getting outta contracts, whether they’re either were terminated or they’ve gotta put in notice.
And there’s usually some sort of extenuating circumstances relating to employment law. And then the last, we, we help veterinarians buy and sell veterinary practices. That’s my training actually. I’m a transactional attorney working mergers and acquisitions. And so I, I, I love helping veterinarians buy practices and I love veterinarians.
You know, help them sell their practices as a former practice owner myself. So that’s the brunt of what we do.
Andy Roark: I’ve talked to you many times about, contracts for veterinarians. You know, we talked about non-compete contracts and, and, and clauses and things like that. And so you, I’ve just, I had you in a, a number of times. What I wanna talk to you about today is something that I really kinda wanna get my head around and I kind of wanna understand.
What is this and, and how seriously should I take this? And what does this mean? LMU Lincoln Memorial University has sued the AVMA and the Council of Education for Anti-Competitive Practices. And I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna stop there and hand this to you and say, Lance, what does that mean exactly?
What, what have they sued for here?
Lance Roasa: Yeah. Well actually Andy, I, this is a, you know, your question about how, how seriously should we take this? I’ll tell you when I opened my news that morning my jaw dropped. I mean, I actually gasped that day, you know, that a constituent school, you know, would be suing the governing body. But after digging into it and, and reading the, plaintiff’s complaint and, and, and studying it and things like that it’s really a pretty straightforward lawsuit alleging that the AVMA through the Council on Education is engaging in antitrust or Sherman antitrust activities. And so, set of like a very simplistic way engaging in protectionist activities by limiting the number of schools that are in the United States. It limits the number of veterinarians that are in the United States, and thus creates essentially a monopoly on veterinary services.
It’s not truly a monopoly, you know, ’cause everybody’s providing different services, but with lower, lower numbers of veterinarians and more people needing veterinary services. it drives the price up. And so the lawsuit is, is alleging that this is done on purpose. It’s done systematically.
And it’s done in an, this accreditation process is done in an arbitrary fashion, and we can, you know, we’ll probably talk about that in a few minutes as well.
Andy Roark: That’s what they say. What does the AVMA say? surely they’ve responded to this, at least superficially.
Lance Roasa: Well, they haven’t, you know, on the, on the surface yet. And so we don’t, we don’t exactly know how they’re going to respond and how they’re going to, you know, defend the lawsuit. I’m sure that at some point, and I’m, you know, kind of reading between the lines here. The AVMA, you know, through multiple economic papers and things along those lines is saying there’s not really a shortage of veterinarians.
And so that’s kind of the heart of this whole debate is, is where do we stand in the number of veterinarians in this country? We’ve got economic models and we’ve got economic reports that basically point in both directions. I think the AVMA is gonna probably say something to the lines of there’s not really a shortage on veterinarians.
There’s not really a conspiracy here, you know, to reduce the number of veterinarians in the country. And there’s not, you know, subsequently, you know, antitrust issues.
Andy Roark: That makes sense to me. So when we look at LMU, is it interesting to you that LMU was the group that brought this.
Lance Roasa: Actually, no. You know, so, after digging into this the LMU Law School sued the American Bar Association 10 or 12 years ago when they were undergoing their accreditation status. And so the American Bar Association acts much like the AVMA COE to accredit law schools. You know, so does site visits and studies the curriculum and things like that.
And, and so the same school sued the ABA, their own accreditor. And ultimately and lawsuit really looked a very similar, along very similar lines. It wasn’t a copy and paste job, but it had very similar complaints. Ultimately they ended up dropping that lawsuit. And very shortly thereafter, they were accredited.
The law school was accredited by the ABA. And so, you know, as far as which school. Chose to, to bring the lawsuit. Well, they’ve have a history of doing this at, at LMU in the past. And secondly, LMU is the country’s, the United States largest veterinary school. They graduated class of about 225 veterinarians a year.
And they’re thinking about, or actually doing, adding a Florida campus as well. And, and so that would almost double their class size. But there, there’s about 150 students that are going to attend down in Florida. So they would be. Not just a little bit of the largest veterinary school. They would be the largest veterinary school in the contiguous 48 states by a long shot.
Andy Roark: if LMU were to be successful with their lawsuit, right? And so they, they sue the a VM and they say there’s your sort of anti-competitive practices. You are restricting the ability of people to make veterinary schools. and like, and because you restrict disability to create vet schools, there’s essentially a monopoly.
There’s the schools that are in existence and no one else is allowed, is able to compete with them. If LMU is successful in their lawsuit, Lance, does that mean the doors are kinda wide open for people to start making vet schools? you know, in all of, like, actually they’re gonna be like Halloween spirit shops.
You know, the ones that pop up just a, a Rite Aid goes outta business and then bam, it’s a vet school. Like, is that what we’re gonna go to?
Lance Roasa: You know, we’ve got, there’s actually 13 planned veterinary schools in the country right now. You know, so as far as are the doors being blown off of it, that that’s relatively speaking. That’s a lot of new vet schools.
Andy Roark: Well, we had like 33 and then there’s like, you know, 15 more that are, you know, 13 or 15 more that are coming. You go, that’s a pretty substantial percentage. You know, 33 to 40%, you know, increase in vet schools over a period of a couple of years. That’s pretty significant upward
Lance Roasa: Yeah. Really. And I mean, actually it’s in a lawsuit, but you know, we both know, ’cause we’ve been in this industry for a long time. The number of veterinary schools has been relatively stable, you know, through the sixties and seventies and eighties. I mean, there’s been a sprinkling of new schools, but not a wave of, you know, 15 and 20 new schools in, just in the matter of a decade, you know?
But the lawsuit is, is not necessarily, you know, they’re not necessarily suing to allow new schools. What the specifics of the lawsuit are is they’re just asking the AVMA through injunctive relief, which just means that the court can force the A-V-M-A-C-O-E to do certain things, but they’re looking for injunctive relief to apply the standards.
The A-V-M-A-C-O-E has a series of standards that they accredit veterinary schools too, but they want them to apply those standards in a non arbitrary fashion. They want to have more concrete and and thoughtful. Points that the AVMA can apply. And so as far as is this gonna open the floodgates?
Not necessarily so, but it, it could, if there’s a much more of a checklist style you know, set of standards for the, you know, for the COE to follow.
Andy Roark: I, I read that sort of the point of contention with LMU specifically, right? So they’re opening up this Orlando campus, and it seemed to me like the point of contention was something around, there’s, there’s a point of order that’s around a research volume. Yeah. Tell me about that.
What does that mean?
Lance Roasa: that’s actually it’s accreditation Standard 10, you know, that they’re specifically pointing to, and this is actually what and how all this came about is you look back to September and October of 2024 the COE. Basically downgraded lmu main campuses accreditation status.
They put them on probation with a major deficiency. That’s a big deal. Right? And we’re not talking about a minor issue. It was a major deficiency. And that major deficiency was in research. And so what the A-V-M-A-C-O-E says is basically saying is, is you don’t have enough research.
Clinicians, you don’t have enough research academicians. You are the students that are, you’re graduating with a veterinary degree, don’t have enough exposure and access to adequate research programs. Now, here’s the kicker. For the previous 10 years roughly the AVMA had not had issues with LMU research.
They accredited them and re-accredited them multiple times without saying anything about. Their lack of research or lack of research faculty, and then all of a sudden here comes September, October, 2024. Not just a warning, but a major downgrade on the probationary status, which don’t hold me to this, but if the school has generally two or three years to basically rectify that situation, or they risk losing their accreditation status.
Andy Roark: What do you think is most interesting about all of this when you look at it and how it’s sort of shaping up? What, what sort of what draws your attention and like what kind of makes you think.
Lance Roasa: Yeah, I, I can tell you personally when I read these lawsuits and even the, the lawsuit about veterinary interns and when I look at, you know, the, the amount of private equity dollars that are flying, flowing into this industry, my mind goes immediately to. Veterinary medicine is not a, you know, a backwater, small beans, profession anymore.
I, I mean, we are, we are facing big time, growing pains. We’re facing, you know, the same things that, you know, our human colleagues have faced over the years. And, you know, and, and we’re not, you know, just the, you know, the little brother, you know, to the human physician or human medical world I mean, their veterinary medicine is a big deal.
With a lot of dollars flowing through these educational campuses. these schools all, you know, maybe not for profit, but they certainly create a lot of revenue. There’s a lot of money that’s spent in veterinary education. You know, veterinary, the veterinary industry as a whole is growing rapidly.
I, I think that we’re in the. 60 to $70 billion range at this point. You know, as a whole in this country, it, it employs 500,000 plus people, you know, overall. So, you know, the veterinary industry, the thing that makes me stop and think is, is when I got into the veterinary industry in the, you know, in the late nineties it was kind of a small beans deal and it’s not a small beans deal.
You know, we’re talking, you know, just 25 years later.
Andy Roark: talk to me a bit about the veterinary interns suing. their universities and sort of internship providers a bit. What’s your perspective on that, on that lawsuit?
Lance Roasa: The main defendant on that lawsuit is the, is the MATCH program you know, the, the V-I-R-M-P, so the body that matches those things together? Yeah, there are a lot of co-defendants, you know, where we’re talking about, you know, internship providers some schools some private hospitals, independent hospitals as well.
So what we have in that lawsuit are a couple of veterinarians that had undergone. Internships recently, like in, you know, the last four or five years or so. and it’s kind of interesting Andy, because their lawsuits are alleging many of the same things that the LMU lawsuit we just got through, you know, talking about looking at antitrust and conspiracy and, and basically price fixing on salaries.
And so what they’re saying is, is the schools and the match program Is basically acting to show everybody’s salary. And these providers of insur internships are conspiring to keep salaries low. And you know, and, and again, that’s the, it’s the same law or the same law set of laws that we’re talking about, the Sherman Antitrust Act.
And so as a whole, what it’s saying is, is veterinary. Internship salaries are kept low artificially because of the illegal, allegedly illegal activities of these providers.
Andy Roark: that seems hard to prove, right? So usually when we talk about. Wage transparency or, you know, sharing salaries publicly, it, it’s, and is a positive thing, right? Like, we wanna make it transparent what, you know, what people are getting paid so that we can say, you know, things are equitable and they’re fair, and, and people know what they’re getting into.
But it sounds like what you’re saying is, is looking at the match. You know, if you are, if you are a provider of internships and you’re using the match, then you can look at those salaries and say, oh, there’s no upward pressure, as long as we all kind of keep. Our salaries down here, down low we can continue to have work at this, at this low pay rate.
Is that correct?
Lance Roasa: Yeah, so the Sherman Adding Trust Act, you know, really kind of sets a difference between historical salaries and present and future perspective salaries. And so, you know, if, if we said, if we all got together and say, you know, last year, a few years ago, this is how much we made and therefore this is how much we paid our employees.
That’s kind of a historical thing. It’s attenuated, there’s some distance there. Right. But the match in particular. On its face defacto, when you are going through and looking at those various internship locations, you can see for public knowledge what the prospective compensation’s gonna be. And so that’s, that’s the difference.
And so it’s, it’s historical versus, versus looking forward. And so, you know, and, and any of the other providers, any of the other internship providers can go and look at that data as well. Not what they paid in the past, but what they’re going to pay in the future. And that’s, that’s really key to the key differentiator when we’re talking about Sherman antitrust lawsuits.
Andy Roark: So when you’re looking at these two lawsuits, right, so you’re looking at the LMU and then you’re looking at the interns. Do you have a feeling about which way the wind is blowing from a sort of, from a legal decision sort of standpoint? Do you feel like we’re entering into a time when, when we’re going to find support for reducing sort of these restrictive type infrastructures?
Or do you think we are heading into a place where those sort of I, I don’t wanna call ’em restrictive, but those almost like gatekeeper sort of structures where they’re gonna sort of be protected? Do you, do you have an instinct on, are there overall trends there?
Lance Roasa: I do, I mean, this is completely a gut feeling, you know, Andy, but you know, I see kind of that old guard, you know, that kind of protectionist thinking. You know, some people refer to it. You know, colloquially as the good old boys club is breaking down of sorts. And that’s what’s happening is these lawsuits are, you know, kind of chipping away at those, you know, at those institutions that have basically brought our profession to where it’s at now.
so, and I kind of like, what I think is kind of, you know, juxtaposed against all of that is consumer demand, right? So we have consumers. That are in high, our services as veterinarians are in high, high demand. You know, and that’s kind of, and we haven’t even discussed this yet, you know, Andy, but you know, we can talk about the you know, the veterinary practitioners, you know, over in Colorado, right?
And so the, the consumers have spoken and said, we want more access. To veterinary care. And so both of these lawsuits in a kind of a circuitous way are saying, Hey, we need more veterinarians in this country. There’s not necessarily a shortage in, in, in veterinarians. So my gut is telling me that lawyers, we can always blame it on the lawyers, right?
Andy? The lawyers are gonna chip away, you know, at these things through various methods. And, you know, and, and these lawsuits in, in my opinion, you know, have some merit, right? I mean, these, these are not frivolous lawsuits. You know, there are, there are some real. You know, some real claims here.
The internship lawsuit is actually a class action lawsuit which ha could have 5,000 different plaintiffs. So anybody that’s fi that’s done an internship and suffered through the hours and suffered through the low salary could actually join this lawsuit. You know, so we could be, we could see a, a relatively large number of veterinarians, you know, join that lawsuit if the court allows and, and certifies all of the class action stuff.
Andy Roark: I guess I’m curious as your perspective here, you know, so you, you’ve been a veterinarian, you’ve been a practice owner you sort of, of the veterinary culture and everything. And you also mentioned, you know, private equity money and the amount of money that’s sort of coming in to the profession.
And maybe this is, I’m, I think I’m about to ask you a question on morality here, so I apologize for that, but like. When you look at this and you see lawsuits like this and you mentioned, you know, you sort of said the good old boys network and you talk about this sort of being chiseled away. Do you really see it, Lance, as like the good old boys network is being broken down to provide better access or do you see it as the private equity guys are coming in and there’s money to be made and so there’s, sort of the rampant capitalists are like, let’s break this down and make enough and make as much money for ourselves as we possibly can or do you see something in between?
Lance Roasa: that’s a really good question. and I, I’m gonna be very, you know, forthright here is, is, I don’t see the fingerprints of the veterinary, of the private equity groups, of these lawsuits. I don’t see them in the background, you know, hiding in the shadows saying You should go file this lawsuit.
In fact, the internship. A lawsuit would damage them greatly. Right? They would have to pay their interns more if successful. And, and, and some of the biggest plaintiffs in this are, you know, med Vet and Mars, and, you know, and, and some large veterinary consolidators and large veterinary, you know, you know, owned groups.
You know, on the, you know, the Lincoln Memorial suit. I mean, there’s definitely money behind Lincoln Memorial. There are for, you know, not-for-profit institution, but I don’t see the, the consolidators or the, the private equity groups urging Lincoln Memorial to do this.
Now, would they benefit from it? Veterinary salaries in theory. If more veterinary schools were allowed, veterinarian, veterinary salaries in theory would go down. it doesn’t stand, you know, to reason much there. Now, would that actually happen in true life? In real life? I’m not an economist Andy.
You know, but my knee jerk reaction as a practicing veterinarian is there’s still a lot of work for all of us to go
Andy Roark: yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, I appreciate you saying that. I, I, I, yeah, I appreciate you saying that and sort of, sort of laying those things out. It’s interesting, you know, I, I think that there are some. Serve some clashing worldviews that are out there about veterinarians holding onto control and not sharing control.
And then there’s other worldviews of everything is secret capitalist, you know, objectives to tear away the safeguards and make as much money as possible without thought of, of long-term consequences. And I, and I don’t. I don’t know that either. There’s, I don’t think either of those world worldviews is true and accurate across the board.
whenever I see things like this and, and they, both, these lawsuits we’re talking about they do feel sort of similar, but you’re right that it is different in, in sort of who benefits and who and who is damaged and in both of them.
Lance Roasa: Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, and I wanna be clear, I don’t, I don’t think the AVMA has set around, and I don’t know this, you know, at all. In conspired, that’s the exact words, you know, conspired. That this is what we’re going to do so we can all make more money. You know, we’re going to limit the number of veterinarians and, you know, on the board of directors and, through the council on education.
I don’t think that happened. My gut tells me that that didn’t happen. I know people that were on those, on those boards and those councils that I, I know that they wouldn’t do that. I think that the meaning was probably. We need to protect our patients and protect our clients and, and thus train veterinarians appropriately and properly and, and make sure that we have the right schools, you know, accredited.
I, to me as a veterinarian, and this is I think where we, you and I and the rest of the profession kind of differ from. The private equity world is my first thought always goes to patient health. What’s it gonna do to patient health? What’s it gonna do to the client that’s standing in front of me right now?
What’s it gonna do to the price that they have to pay for, you know, the service that I’m about to provide what’s it gonna cost if they have to go to the emergency center for the overnight? Right? What’s, where my heart and my mind goes to, you know, not, Hey, how is somebody gonna make more money?
But on the other end of that spectrum, somebody’s sitting there thinking how are we gonna make or lose money on this situation?
Andy Roark: that’s fantastic. Lance. Thank you so much for talking through this with me. Where can people find you online? Where can they learn more about the the Roasa Law Group?
Lance Roasa: Yeah. Thanks Andy. Yeah, it’s just Roasa law.com. That’s R-O-A-S-A. You know, interestingly enough. Way behind you. We did start a podcast just a few months ago where we take deep dives into these exact legal issues. I know you talk about all sorts of stuff. I only talk about, you know, legal stuff. So if listeners do have a, you know, a stronger interest in learning more about non-competes or learning about what are the things that I need to think about when I’m selling my practice or buying a practice you know, we, we talk through those things and so I’d love to have folks join us over there.
Some of the most timely topics that we’ve had are. Ai. And what’s AI gonna do? You know, in veterinary medicine, what’s Proposition 129 gonna do in Colorado? You know, for veterinary medicine, it’s gonna spread across the country. These are phenomenally interesting things to, to talk about. Hopefully people find them interesting as well.
Andy Roark: what’s the name of the podcast?
Lance Roasa: It’s called the office hours,
Andy Roark: Outstanding. Well, I’ll put a link in the show notes so everybody can find that. Lance, thanks again for being here. Thanks for tuning in and listening to everybody take care of yourselves.
Lance Roasa: Thanks Andy. Have a good one.
Andy Roark: And that’s what I got guys. Thanks for being here. Thanks to Lance Roasa of the Roasa Law Group.
Guys I really appreciate your time. I hope you learned something here. I’ll see you guys later on.
