There two major differences that I see in being an attorney that works for a third party administration firm and my role at my law firm. First, I now offer an attorney-client relationship with my clients rather than protecting my employer’s (the TPA) interest.
Second, I can now take credit for correcting errors caused by a TPA. The reason I couldn’t do it before as a TPA attorney was that it was my administrators making the mistakes. It’s hard to take credit for correcting your employer’s errors.