Annette Johnson, JD, PhD

Executive Vice President and Vice Dean, General Counsel

Annette Johnson, executive vice president and vice dean, general counsel, has served as general counsel of NYU Langone Health and its entities since 2001, when she founded the Office of General Counsel for NYU Langone Hospitals and NYU School of Medicine, after having served in the NYU Office of General Counsel from 1981. She was appointed senior vice president and general counsel for NYU Langone Health in 2007. Having grown the Office of General Counsel to its current staff of 20 in-house attorneys—each with deep expertise in their fields of practice—plus support staff in Manhattan and on Long Island, Ms. Johnson oversees all legal matters concerning NYU Langone Health, NYU Langone Hospitals, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine, and all subsidiary entities of these corporations, including the off-shore insurance captive corporations.

Under her direction, the Office of General Counsel provides legal leadership and services in corporate governance, corporate finance and bond issuance, mergers—including recent mergers with NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn and NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island; affiliation with Long Island Community Hospital; acquisitions and joint ventures; hospital regulatory, medical staff, and patient matters; all faculty and physician employment contracts; counsel and litigation management for employment and labor matters; research conduct and federal contracting and response to investigations, technology transfer licensing, and management; and management and direction of all malpractice claims and lawsuits brought against the hospital system and insured physicians.

Ms. Johnson directs and oversees over 40 outside law firms that provide legal services to NYU Langone Health, including active management of high-value affirmative litigations. Under Ms. Johnson’s direction, the Office of General Counsel is highly efficient and continues to deliver excellent legal services with outside counsel expense below national benchmark for comparable corporations.

In addition to her responsibilities in legal matters, Ms. Johnson has responsibility for NYU Langone’s Office of Internal Audit, Compliance, and Enterprise Risk Management (IACERM), which she founded and has led since 1998. With a staff of 33 audit and compliance professionals, under the direction of the vice president for IACERM reporting to her, Ms. Johnson oversees administration of NYU Langone’s conflicts of interest management, research integrity and research misconduct matters, HIPAA and privacy compliance, professional and hospital billing compliance, and internal audit functions and reporting.

Prior to attending law school, Ms. Johnson earned a PhD in English at the University of Massachusetts. She received her JD summa cum laude from the University of Toledo, where she was valedictorian. After graduating from law school, she held a faculty and administrative appointment at the University of Toledo College of Law and served in the New York State Office of the Attorney General prior to joining NYU. She has published articles in the area of faculty tenure and school financing reform.