Ropes & Gray LLP
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036-8704
+1 212 841 0681
+1 646 728 1603

Secretary: +1 212 596 9620

I am a health care partner in Ropes & Gray’s New York office. I joined the firm in July 2003, having spent over a decade representing primarily New York-based health care clients on regulatory, compliance and government enforcement matters. My clients include academic medical centers, community hospitals and health systems; other community-based organizations that serve patients with special needs; Taft-Hartley welfare benefit plans; HMOs and other managed care organizations, both large and small; and pharmacy benefit managers and drug companies. New York’s vast and highly regulated health care landscape provides fertile terrain for lawyers who do what I do, and much of my work involves State government, the New York State Medicaid program and the application of New York law. However, I also spend a good deal of my time advising health care providers on the intricacies of the federal Medicare and fraud and abuse statutes, as well as defending them against federal investigations.

I was attracted to Ropes & Gray by the quality of its lawyers, its deep roots representing medical schools and their affiliated teaching hospitals on both coasts, and its commitment to viewing all clients as clients of the firm, not of a single lawyer or practice group. All three of these virtues have been demonstrated by my experience at the firm, and I have found it to be a terrific fit for a health care lawyer at mid-career. My only regret is that I did not find my way here sooner. (And I felt that way even before I observed the summer program!)

I grew up in Washington, D.C., attended Harvard College (A.B., 1981) and Yale Law School (J.D., 1985), and clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Los Angeles. I took the California bar with the thought that I might stay and practice on the West Coast, but was lured back to the East Coast by my girlfriend (now wife), who is a native New Yorker. Before landing in health care, I trained as a litigator and spent a year in the mayoral administration of David Dinkins, working on drug abuse policy. I continue to have an abiding interest in politics and work frequently as a campaign volunteer.

My wife, Susan Sommer, and I live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with our three children (ages 15, 13 and 10). Susan is Senior Counsel at Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, where she is the lead lawyer in the current lawsuit to establish a right to marry for same sex couples under the New York State Constitution. I serve on the firm’s Diversity and Pro Bono Committees and am a volunteer trustee of the Legal Action Center, which brings impact litigation on behalf of ex-offenders and people with histories of addiction or HIV/AIDS.

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