$7.6 billion Sutter Health has announced the appointment of Florence DiBenedetto as senior vice president and general counsel. She will assume her new role Jan. 5, 2009, succeeding long-time General Counsel Gary Loveridge, who is retiring.

DiBenedetto comes to Sutter Health after spending two decades with the Sacramento-based law firm Hunter Richey DiBenedetto & Eisenbeis, LLP, where she served more than 10 years as the firm’s health law section senior partner. From 1989 to 1995, DiBenedetto worked as the firm’s litigation section senior partner, overseeing commercial and health care-related litigation and trying cases in state and federal court as well as in a variety of administrative tribunals.