Business attorney leads synagogue

Then: VASA Brougher general counsel

Now: Law Offices of Mark P. Katz attorney

Age: 60

(IBJ photo/Eric Learned)

At the time she was named to Forty Under 40, Patti Freeman Dorson was a high-powered counsel testifying before a Senate committee on health care reform on behalf of the insurance company VASA Brougher.

“It was nice to be recognized for that particular work, because it was so meaningful to me to go try to expand coverage,” she said.

But by the end of 1998, the company pulled out of the U.S. market and Dorson decided to stay home to raise her two young sons. In 2007, she eased back into the workforce as a facilitator with the Mothers Circle of Greater Indianapolis, which provides education and support to women who aren’t Jewish but are raising Jewish children.

In 2013, she joined the Law Offices of Mark P. Katz, where she works on business transactions. And last May, she assumed the presidency of the Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation.

“Things haven’t turned out as I planned,” she said, “but they turned out exactly as they should.”•