Neil W. Kunkel
Executive Vice President, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer
Neil joined Capella in October of 2011 as General Counsel and Secretary of the Board. He was promoted to his current position in January 2014. He has more than 20 years of experience in
the practice of law, fifteen of those in health care.
Before joining Capella, he was Vice-President and Associate General Counsel for LifePoint Hospitals, which he joined in 1998 before its spin-off from HCA in 1999. Prior to that, he was affiliated with HCA, where he served as Group Operations Counsel then as Managing Counsel. He began his career as Law Clerk for Justices W. Joel Blass and C.H. McRae with the Mississippi Supreme Court in 1990. He then worked for two law firms in Louisville, Kentucky.
Neil is a member of the Nashville Health Care Council’s 2015 Fellows Class. A member of the Board of Governors of the Federation of American Hospitals, Neil has served as Chair and Vice-Chair of the Legal and Operations Policy Committee. He has also served as Chair of the Health Facilities Interest Group of the American Bar Association’s Health Law Section. He is a member of the American Health Lawyers Association and a member of both the Tennessee and Kentucky Bar Associations.
A graduate of Wake Forest University, Neil earned his law degree from the University of Louisville Law School, where he was a member of the Brandeis Honor Society. He and his wife, Paula Walker, have two children.