Crowell & Moring has hired 16 healthcare litigation partners across the US from Reed Smith, in a move the firm said would “reshape this sector of the legal industry nationally”.
The group is led by Martin Bishop, who will co-chair Crowell’s healthcare group and will join the firm in Chicago with eight more partners, nearly doubling the size of its healthcare team in the city. Other partners will join in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Dallas, where Crowell will open an office.
Dozens of additional lawyers who are part of the team will also make the move to Crowell in the next two weeks, the firm said, along with professional staff who work with the group.
Crowell already boasts more than 100 healthcare practitioners according to its website, including Stephen Bentfield, who joined as a partner in Denver last year, having been group general counsel at DaVita Integrated Kidney Care.
In June, the firm also boosted its life sciences capabilities through a merger with 24-lawyer life sciences deal-making boutique Faber Daeufer & Itrato, in a move that saw it expand into Boston.
Philip Inglima, chair of Crowell’s management board, said the firm was prioritising growing its healthcare practice and the team hire from Reed Smith added valuable experience and industry knowledge.
“They have built strong, long-term relationships with their clients by consistently delivering premier client service and legal excellence to managed care companies looking to capitalise on opportunities and mitigate risk,” Inglima added.
The team joining Crowell has litigated a variety of complex individual, multi-party and class action managed-care cases in the US involving issues such as ERISA, RICO, the Affordable Care Act and the Mental Health Parity Act, among others.
Troy Barsky, co-chair of Crowell’s health care group, said the team’s hire “creates a true ‘one stop shop’ for both our payer and provider clients and bolsters our ability to provide comprehensive counsel on cutting-edge healthcare issues”.
Partners Steven Hamilton, Rebecca Hanson, Thomas Hardy, Daniel Hofmeister, Alexandra Lucas, Jason Mayer, Kevin Tessier and Bryan Webster will join Crowell in Chicago alongside Bishop. Meanwhile, Michelle Cheng, Lorenzo Gasparetti, Junga Kim, Amir Shlesinger and Kenneth Smersfelt will join in Los Angeles and Karen Braje will move over in San Francisco.
The final partner moving over is Scott Williams, who will join the new office in Dallas. Crowell intends to open the office with more than six lawyers and expand beyond healthcare into government contract, antitrust and commercial litigation practices, Bloomberg Law reported.
A Reed Smith spokesperson thanked the outgoing team members for their contributions, adding the departures would allow the firm to strengthen its healthcare offering by “removing certain conflicts, responding to a long-standing demand to expand client relationships, partnering with new healthcare organisations, and attracting even broader talent”.
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