McDermott Will & Schulte, a global law firm

Leads firmwide strategy and culture as firm chairman

Advises healthcare clients on high-stakes mergers, acquisitions, and disputes, with a private equity focus

Jerry J. Sokol concentrates his national practice on the business aspects of healthcare law with an emphasis on mergers and acquisitions, private equity, and various contractual arrangements in the healthcare industry.

Jerry has a robust healthcare private equity practice with a focus on leveraged buyout transactions. Jerry and his team are uniquely qualified to perform the acquisition and finance components of these transactions, as well as the healthcare-specific due diligence and regulatory aspects of deals.

This unique combination of first-rate healthcare regulatory expertise and top-tier private equity corporate practice expertise provides private equity fund clients, as well as clients who are selling to private equity, a distinct advantage in the transaction process, as opposed to the large number of transactions in which these two critical legal components are bifurcated between firms.

Jerry has had a 25-year practice focus on the acquisitions and sales of large medical practices. His focus in this area dates back to the mid-1990s. He has substantial experience rolling up physician practices in a wide range of physician specialties (e.g., dermatology, ophthalmology, gastroenterology, dental, orthopedics, urology, radiology, anesthesia, ER, pain). Jerry and his team are particularly adept at establishing and executing upon effective acquisition strategies for physician practice management companies. These strategies include adopting cutting-edge structures to protect the investment and position the PPM for growth by properly incentivizing physicians and ensuring their commitment to the enterprise, which is paramount for successful PPM companies.

Jerry has also developed a particular niche representing ambulatory surgery center (ASC) companies with all of their transactional and regulatory needs. His ASC transactional practice ranges from syndicating start-up ASCs, effectuating the sales of equity interests in existing ASCs to physicians, and buying and selling significant equity positions in ASCs on behalf of and to large corporate buyers and health systems.

Jerry also has substantial merger and acquisition experience with companies in a variety of other healthcare services subsectors, including hospitals, diagnostic imaging, urgent care, physical therapy, pharmacy and cancer treatment centers, among others.

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.

Stephen W. Bernstein specializes in e-health, “big data”, data engineering, deployment of digital health tools and solutions and health-related matters affected by the internet and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), as well as private equity investments, mergers, acquisitions, affiliations and joint ventures involving technology, digital health companies, hospitals and physicians. Stephen co-leads the Firm’s Digital Health Practice, which brings together McDermott lawyers from within and outside the Health Industry Advisory Practice Group to develop thought leadership, share information and collaborate on best practices. Stephen served as global head of the Firm’s Health Practice from 2009-2018, and as the Health Practice’s Partner-in-Charge of Health Practice Operations during 2023 and 2024. He has also served on the Firm’s Management, Compensation, Executive and Finance Committees.

Stephen has particular experience working with private equity funds, venture funds, as well as pharmaceutical, biotech and device companies concerning uses of health information for clinical and database research, product/disease registries and marketing matters, electronic health record development and implementation, including the ways these endeavors relate to personalized medicine.

Representative clients include the Best Buy Health, OMERS Private Equity, Modernizing Medicine, Nuance Communications, American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), Stanford University, Physicians’ Organization at Children’s Hospital (Boston), Cape Cod Healthcare, Summit Partners and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ).

Stephen has practiced health law since 1988 in Boston, Massachusetts, and in Palo Alto, California. In Palo Alto, he provided on-site counsel to Stanford University Medical Center. Among other accomplishments at Stanford, Stephen participated in the negotiations for the affiliation between Stanford Health Services and Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital. He lectures extensively on healthcare technology privacy/HIPAA and related security matters, digital health, collaborative transformations, data mining, clinical research and product/disease registries as well as electronic health record implementation. Stephen has been featured on National Public Radio’s syndicated program Here and Now and has been quoted by The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post on medical privacy issues.

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.

Advises clients on telehealth, remote patient monitoring, AI-enabled tools, consumer wellness and other virtual care or digital health companies on product development, compliance, commercialization, and reimbursement strategies

Guides clients on structuring compliant care delivery models, navigating multi-state licensure, and advising on fraud and abuse, data privacy, cybersecurity, and other key areas

Advises mail order, retail and other types of pharmacies, suppliers and manufacturers on partnerships with healthcare companies and related compliance considerations

Develops compliance frameworks for consumer wellness programs and mobile health solutions

Leads retailers, tech companies and other non-healthcare companies through their development and launch of healthcare products or offerings

Structures provider networks and strategic collaborations among hospitals, health centers, and physicians

Counsels investors on healthcare trends, reimbursement opportunities and changes in laws to assist with designing their investment strategies