McDermott Will & Schulte, a global law firm

Charles (Charlie) R. Buck advises healthcare enterprises on complex transactions and regulatory compliance. He represents a wide range of clients, including proprietary and tax-exempt hospital systems, academic medical centers and faculty practice groups, accountable care organizations, and health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and other health insurers. Charlie is partner-in-charge of the Firm’s Boston Health Industry Advisory Practice Group and Co-Leader of its Hospitals and Health Systems practice.

Charlie provides legal counsel and solutions in connection with mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic affiliations, conversions to tax-exempt status, and other transactional matters. His practice focuses on provide strategic and transactional advice to hospitals and health systems, academic medical centers, and other organizations in the healthcare sector. Charlie has extensive experience with federal fraud and abuse laws (including the Stark Law) and certain state regulatory matters.

After earning his law degree, Charlie clerked for the Honorable Charles R. Breyer of the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Prior to law school, Charlie served on the professional staff of the United States Senate Finance Committee for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, where he concentrated on health reform and Medicare Part A. He also worked as a policy analyst at the Jackson Hole Group, where he focused on rural healthcare and purchasing cooperatives.

Ian M. Schwartz is the global co-head of investment management and co-head of private equity funds at McDermott Will & Schulte. He focuses his practice on advising investment firms and private equity sponsors on the formation and marketing of their funds and investments. Additionally, Ian is highly skilled in counseling private fund clients in connection with structuring fund investments, including general partner-lead secondary transactions and co-investment structures.

Ian has served as legal counsel in numerous multibillion-dollar and middle-market private investment fundraisings for institutional and boutique sponsors across a spectrum of investment strategies, including buyout, real estate, loan origination, debt, credit, fund of fund, healthcare, infrastructure, region specific, secondary, venture, growth equity, distressed/special situation, energy, funds-of-one, seeding, and co-investment. He also has extensive experience advising investment firms and private equity sponsors on hybrid, semi-open ended, and other bespoke fund structures that align the fund’s liquidity profile and terms to the liquidity and characteristics of the underlying investments.

He also regularly assists fund sponsors with their internal operational matters, such as the organization and documentation of their firm governance arrangements, carry plan structuring, and employee co-investment vehicles and structures. Ian also counsels fund managers on a wide range of regulatory and compliance matters.

Ian is ranked as a leading investment funds lawyer by numerous publications, including Chambers and Partners, Legal 500 US, and IFLR1000.

In addition to fund sponsors, Ian’s clients include top institutional limited partners, family offices, sovereign wealth funds, and senior investment professionals.

Leads complex M&A and affiliations for nonprofit hospitals, health systems, and academic medical centers

Structures strategic service line joint ventures and innovative investments

Advises on corporate and governance restructurings across healthcare platforms

Advises on healthcare-specific corporate and regulatory compliance matters

Manages large-scale transactions with multidisciplinary teams across key areas including antitrust, real estate, benefits, and fraud and abuse

Counsels Catholic healthcare organizations on corporate and Canon law structuring

Kristian (Krist) Werling is the global head of McDermott’s Health & Life Sciences practice, which provides regulatory and transactional counsel to health and life sciences industry leaders, changemakers, and investors.

Krist and the McDermott Health & Life Sciences team lead the most significant transactions, critical regulatory issues, and litigation matters that shape the health and life sciences industry. In his own practice, Krist represents life sciences companies, health service providers, private equity firms, and venture capital investors in a wide variety of transactional and regulatory matters. He has led cutting-edge industry transactions that have introduced cancer and gene therapy products to the global market, expanded access to fertility services, increased the availability of cost-effective outpatient surgical services, and transformed the delivery of physician services in a broad range of specialties.

Krist's decades of experience on the buy-side and sell-side of health and life sciences dealmaking spans the healthcare and life sciences landscape. He leads cross-disciplinary teams and delivers business-focused legal guidance to help clients pursue their most innovative strategies, working across borders and health and life sciences subsectors to connect and advise industry stakeholders. Krist is also skilled at developing creative transaction structures, conducting sector-specific due diligence, and providing forward-looking counsel to mitigate issues that can derail transactions or stunt long-term growth. His deep understanding of sector-specific regulatory nuances allows him to efficiently close transactions and maximize client outcomes.

Representative PE clients include Ampersand Capital Partners (buy-side and sell-side); Amulet Capital Partners (buy-side and sell-side); Windrose Health Investors (buy-side and sell-side M&A, and joint venture matters); Iron Path Capital (investments, carve-out acquisitions and new platform formations), Quad-C (new platform formation and investment and sell-side), PPC (buy-side).

Representative healthcare and life sciences companies include Baxter International and Vanda Pharmaceuticals (cross-border sales and acquisitions; licensing); REGENXBIO (strategic partnership with AbbVie); Cleveland Clinic, Hospital for Special Surgery and Northwestern Medicine (strategic innovation investments and joint ventures); numerous founder-owned businesses in strategic transactions with investors.