Patients' rights to self-determination or clinicians’ professional judgments in some cases deviate from standard of care and challenge risk managers’ tendencies to implement routine legal risk-mitigation strategies. Risk managers’ roles on care teams are particularly key when patients don’t progress clinically, when patients do not feel safe or satisfied with their services, when interventions are not well coordinated, or when care is not safely, efficiently, or equitably executed. Risk managers’ collaborations with ethics consultants and clinicians in these cases help individuals and organizations respond well to complex questions at the intersections of professional caregiving, ethics, and law.