Ropes & Gray LLP

Ropes & Gray LLP

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Adam Schlichtmann
Adam Schlichtmann
Adam is a partner in the asset management group. Adam focuses on representing registered investment companies, both open- and closed-end funds, and investment advisers in regulatory, transactional and compliance matters. On a regular basis, he provides advice regarding the creation, registration and operation of new and existing investment products designed for institutional or retail investors. He also works with clients to respond to new SEC rules affecting the investment management industry. Prior to attending law school, Adam pursued graduate studies in the Chemistry Department at MIT where he focused on biological chemistry. His research focused on cancer-related mechanisms of DNA damage and repair and platinum-based anti-tumor therapeutics. Adam was also a consultant for a global professional services firm where he assisted with the merger of two major U.S. pharmaceutical companies.
Brien O'Connor
Brien O'Connor
Brien O’Connor is an accomplished trial lawyer who has also negotiated some of the most significant corporate criminal and civil resolutions in the country. Widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading white collar defense lawyers, Brien has been characterized by Chambers USA as “a hugely experienced and well-respected litigator who delivers both quality service and quality result.” Brien focuses his practice on representing corporations and individuals in government investigations and litigation, including civil False Claims Act cases. He regularly counsels clients on matters involving alleged health care fraud and abuse, securities fraud, tax crimes, export law violations, and other fraud and corruption. He has successfully litigated numerous civil and criminal cases, including multi-district civil litigation and False Claims Act cases. Brien also conducts internal investigations and compliance reviews for corporate clients.
Christopher Rile
Christopher Rile
Christopher Rile is a partner in the private equity transaction group in the New York office. Christopher has a transactional practice that focuses on representing private equity investors and public and private businesses in connection with mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, recapitalizations, debt and equity financings and other general corporate matters.  
Colleen Conry
Colleen Conry
Office Managing Partner of the Washington, DC office
David Saltzman
David Saltzman
David Saltzman concentrates his practice on international tax matters and is co-head of the firm’s international practice group. He advises multinational business enterprises, financial institutions, investment funds and global investors on the international and domestic tax aspects of cross-border private equity transactions, M&A, and business restructurings. Well-versed in innovative, multi-jurisdictional capital financing structures, David also regularly counsels clients on the tax aspects of financial products, capital markets transactions and investments in U.S. and non-U.S. real estate.  
Deborah Monson
Deborah Monson
Deborah is a partner in the asset management group and head of the firm’s derivatives and commodities practice. Debbie serves as a trusted advisor to clients, providing pro-active advice and proposing practical solutions to issues confronting asset managers in today’s commercial and regulatory environment. Debbie has represented registered and exempt commodity pool operators and commodity trading advisors for over 30 years and also regularly advises private investment funds, mutual funds, endowments, foundations, family offices, and sovereign wealth funds on futures and commodities law matters. Debbie represents U.S. and offshore private investment funds, fund sponsors and investment advisers. She has a wealth of experience with registration, regulation and compliance issues, as well with counseling clients on fund formation, structuring and operational matters, separately managed accounts, marketing, and negotiations and documentation with service providers. This experience includes working with regulators on behalf of clients, assisting with regulatory exams and inquiries, and obtaining exemptive and no-action relief. Debbie also provides compliance and ethics training for CFTC registrants. For institutional investors, Debbie concentrates on reviewing and negotiating the terms of their investments in private funds and managed accounts.  
Gregory Sheehan
Gregory Sheehan
Greg Sheehan is a partner in the asset management group. Greg has over 35 years of experience in investment management and corporate work. Greg served as chair of the investment management group at Ropes & Gray from 2002-2009, and is currently a member of the firm's Policy Committee (management committee).  
Jane Goldstein
Jane Goldstein
co-head of the Mergers & Acquisitions group for North America and Co-Managing partner of the Boston office; Head of the Retail & Consumer Brands industry group
Joan McPhee
Joan McPhee has more than two decades of experience representing companies and individuals in white collar criminal investigations and trials, as well as complex civil litigation and administrative enforcement matters. Joan has handled high-profile and high-stakes matters for clients across a range of industries, including health care companies, private equity firms, financial institutions, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, academic institutions and non-profit organizations. She has also represented numerous individuals, from senior executives and board members to physicians and engineers. She has defended companies and individuals in cases involving financial fraud, health care fraud, obstruction of justice, securities fraud, public corruption, tax fraud, and other alleged criminal and civil misconduct. She also counsels clients on risk mitigation and effective compliance measures. In addition to her work on government enforcement matters, Joan is a leader of Ropes & Gray’s independent investigations group, which draws on the experience and know-how of former federal prosecutors to conduct thorough inquiries with the highest level of integrity. In 2018, she co-led a 10-month independent investigation commissioned by the United States Olympic Committee into the abuse of elite and Olympic gymnasts by Larry Nassar. The investigation culminated in a detailed December 2018 public report addressing “who knew what when” and what was and was not done in response, as well as contributing cultural conditions and underlying factors in the decades-long abuse. The detailed public report was described by the Washington Post as “thorough and unstinting.”
John Sorkin
John Sorkin
John advises a broad range of clients on U.S. and cross-border M&A transactions, including strategic and private equity acquisitions and dispositions, leveraged buyouts and other transactional and corporate governance matters. He also regularly counsels many of the world’s leading investment banks on financial advisory matters. John has been a frequent speaker on M&A and tender offer transaction topics and has served as adjunct professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where he led a class on private equity transactions.
Kate Withers
Kate Withers is a trusted advisor to clients on their most complex corporate transactions and a partner in Ropes & Gray’s global private equity transactions group based in New York and Los Angeles. Kate advises private equity investors and their portfolio companies on structured corporate transactions in the software, digital infrastructure, consumer, technology, health care, life sciences and financial services sectors. Kate’s broad transactional experience—spanning private equity, strategic M&A, special situations, growth and venture capital transactions—and commercial focus on structuring and executing sophisticated corporate transactions to achieve her client’s business objectives enable her to represent clients on their most complex and bespoke corporate transactions, including: Technology-focused carve-out transactions; Domestic and cross-border mergers & acquisitions; Technology-focused joint ventures; Leveraged buyouts; Pharma and music royalty sales and purchases; Distressed acquisitions and special situations; Restructurings and recapitalizations; and Preferred equity and convertible debt investments. In recent years, Kate’s private equity clients have included GI Partners, TPG, KKR & Co., Lindsay Goldberg, HPS Investment Partners, Vista Equity Partners, Crosspoint Capital, and West Coast middle market funds. Kate also has extensive experience representing strategic acquirers across industries on M&A transactions, including Facebook (now Meta), Abcam, Tencent Holdings, The National Geographic Society, Peloton Interactive, Bonobos, BBVA, Humana, Cisco, American Airlines, Allergan, J&J and numerous biotechnology companies on M&A matters. Kate’s passion for advising clients on technology acquisitions and her deep understanding of financial services, software, data and life sciences businesses have their roots in her prior work as a quantitative data analyst in the financial services and health care industries, including at Bank of America, the World Bank, and for an interdisciplinary team of physician and economics researchers at the Wharton School of Business. Prior to attending law school, Kate studied economics as a Fulbright Scholar at the London School of Economics and was a research assistant to George Akerlof (2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics) at the Brookings Institution. Kate has been recognized as a 2022 Top Woman in Dealmaking by The Deal, by The Legal 500—the world’s largest legal referral guide—for her work in “Technology Transactions,” and by Super Lawyers as a Rising Star in M&A in the New York Metro Area. For more information, please visit https://www.ropesgray.com/en/people/w/kate-withers
Keith Wofford
Keith Wofford
Keith Wofford, co-managing partner of the firm’s 400-lawyer New York office, focuses on bankruptcy and creditors' rights. Keith primarily acts on behalf of investment funds specializing in distressed debt, and potential acquirors of assets of distressed companies. He regularly represents ad hoc committees of secured and unsecured creditors in Chapter 11 cases and in out-of-court workouts, and he also represents official committees in Chapter 11 cases. Keith has been particularly active with respect to inter-creditor disputes, credit-bidding transactions and other acquisitions of company control through debt positions. In addition, he regularly represents clients in bankruptcy courts and other venues. Keith has represented a major energy trading concern with respect to the renegotiation or settlement of trading relationships (encompassing physical and financial trades) with several debtor counterparties (including Enron Corp., Bethlehem Steel Corporation, Mirant Corp. and others).
Larry Rowe
Larry Rowe
Larry Rowe is a partner in the asset management group. Larry works with institutional and other investors in connection with their investments in alternative assets, including private fund investments, equity and debt investments, separately managed accounts, and natural resources investments. Larry also works with fund sponsors in the formation and ongoing representation of private investment funds, including buyout, venture, hedge, debt, and special focus funds. Larry is the former co-head of Ropes & Gray's private equity group, its investment funds group and its venture capital group.  
Mark Somerstein
Mark Somerstein
Mark Somerstein represents secured and unsecured creditors, official and unofficial committees, indenture trustees and loan agents for defaulted debt, debtors, debtor in possession lenders, commercial landlords, and holders of public debt securities in complex cases arising under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, and in out-of-court workouts and pre-packaged and pre-negotiated bankruptcy cases. He also has experience representing parties to preference and fraudulent conveyance litigation and counsels purchasers and sellers of distressed assets in "section 363 sales," and purchasers and sellers of distressed debt and bankruptcy claims. 
Marko Zatylny
Marko Zatylny
Marko focuses his practice on advising public and private companies, investment banks and investment funds in mergers & acquisitions, corporate governance issues and capital markets transactions. He handles transactions for clients in a number of industries, including life sciences, financial services, energy/infrastructure and retail and consumer. His clients include companies such as Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD), Eversource Energy, IQVIA, LPL Financial, MACOM Technology Solutions, Pfizer, Veolia Energy and Verastem. Marko is co-chair of the firm’s energy/infrastructure group. In April 2012 and February 2015, Marko was named “Deal Maker of the Week” by The American Lawyer.  
Matthew Richards
Matthew Richards
Matt Richards is a partner in the firm’s private equity transactions group in Chicago. Matt advises private equity funds, their portfolio companies, other institutional investors, family offices, and other private and public companies on a variety of complex acquisition, disposition, financing, and restructuring transactions. He regularly works on large-cap and middle-market leveraged acquisitions, growth equity and venture financing transactions, sales and other dispositions, restructuring transactions, and strategic acquisitions. He also routinely counsels clients on management compensation and equity arrangements, corporate governance, compliance matters, and joint ventures. Matt has represented companies and investors in transactions in a wide variety of industries, including telecommunications, life sciences, software, business services, consumer products, manufacturing, and distribution. He has strong experience in transactions involving financial services, including transactions involving broker-dealers, insurance brokers, advisers to registered and unregistered funds, and other asset managers.
Michael Lampert
Michael Lampert
Michael Lampert provides strategic, regulatory, and transactional advice to clients including health systems, colleges, universities, schools of medicine and academic medical centers, medical device and pharmaceutical companies, investors, physician practices, laboratories, and emerging providers. Recently, Michael has provided critical guidance to clients on a variety of legal and regulatory issues associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, including advising on practices and policies related to COVID-19 in view of public health guidance, and helping clients navigate evolving developments in state and federal guidelines.  Michael has extensive familiarity with fraud and abuse laws, in both an advisory and enforcement context, conflicts of interest standards, and other regulation such as Medicare reimbursement rules, requirements of the LCME and other accreditation bodies, the Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act, and HIPAA. Michael also advises in mergers, acquisitions, restructurings, affiliations, and financings in both the for-profit and nonprofit context. In addition, Michael guides clients in rigorous compliance program assessment and development projects against the backdrop of, and as a component of, investigations arising from allegations of significant noncompliance.  
Michael McGovern
Michael McGovern
Michael McGovern, co-chair of the firm’s government enforcement practice, has over 25 years of experience representing domestic and multinational corporations, board committees and their officers, directors and other executives in complex criminal and civil enforcement and litigation matters. Michael is also an accomplished criminal trial lawyer, having tried numerous federal cases across the country to verdict. He has successfully defended clients in a wide variety of high-profile and sensitive matters involving allegations of securities and commodities fraud, other types of financial fraud, domestic and foreign corruption, antitrust offenses, tax offenses, and health care fraud.
Morri Weinberg
Morri Weinberg
Morri Weinberg is a partner in the asset management group and co-head of the firm’s private funds practice. He works with private fund sponsors in connection with fundraising, organizational/governance, regulatory and compliance related matters. He also represents institutional investors in connection with their private fund-related investments on a primary, secondary and co-investment basis. Morri's experience also includes transactions involving investment management firms, including joint ventures, spin-offs and acquisitions.  
Newcomb Stillwell
Newcomb Stillwell
Newcomb Stillwell is co-managing partner of Ropes & Gray’s Boston office. He principally represents private equity firms in mergers and acquisitions.Newcomb has been deeply involved in Ropes & Gray’s private equity practice since its inception in the early 80’s and served as the first chair of the Private Equity Group. He has represented Bain Capital since 1992, advising them on multiple transactions of all kinds. His other current major clients include Advent International and The Blackstone Group.
Othon Prounis
Othon Prounis is a partner in the Corporate Department and is a member of Ropes & Gray's Policy Committee, which is the firm's managing body. From 2003 to 2008, Othon was co-head of the firm's Private Equity Transactions practice. Othon concentrates in leveraged buyouts and mergers and acquisitions primarily for private equity funds and their portfolio companies. Representative clients include Welsh Carson Anderson & Stowe, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Silver Lake Partners, Metalmark Capital and the New York City Investment Fund. Othon also has extensive experience representing companies in the healthcare services and technology sectors.
Paul Kinsella
Paul Kinsella
Paul advises on business combinations, securities offerings, and governance matters.
Paulita Pike
Paulita Pike
Paulita Pike is a partner in the asset management group. Paulita represents mutual funds or their boards as well as investment advisers and fund service providers throughout the country. She advises her clients on a broad range of issues including: Governance structures and practices; Compliance issues; D&O/E&O matters; Committee structures and functions, communications with the press, self-evaluations and industry “best practices;” Fund service provider contracts and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission; Fund mergers and “manager-of-managers” arrangements; Regulatory investigations and inquiries; Matters arising from the Investment Company Act of 1940 and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940; and Advising mutual fund managers, investment advisers and fund boards on cybersecurity issues and best practices for data protection. Paulita is an Adjunct Professor at Notre Dame Law School and Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, where she teaches courses, along with Paul Dykstra, on mutual fund regulation.
Peter Laybourn
Peter Laybourn
Peter Laybourn is a partner in Ropes & Gray’s asset management group and co-leader of the firm’s buyout and growth equity funds team. Focusing on fundraising for private equity and other private funds, Peter has helped steer clients through complex fundraisings and transactions ranging in size from a hundred million to many billion dollars.  Drawing on his extensive experience in the formation of growth and buyout funds, credit funds, funds of funds, co-investment funds, energy funds and secondary funds for both emerging and well-established firms, Peter brings deep insight and creativity to the fundraising process. Peter regularly helps clients navigate critical operational and governance matters as well as complex fund level transactions. Moreover, Peter also works with private fund sponsors as well as other institutional clients in the negotiation and execution of domestic and international transactions, GP-led fund restructurings, “spinoffs,” succession planning, joint ventures and general investment management matters. Some of Peter’s clients include Antares Capital, Audax Group, Bain Capital, Baupost Group, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Constitution Capital Partners, Hamilton Lane, Neuberger Berman, Shoreline Equity Partners and Thomas H. Lee Partners.
Peter Rosenberg
Peter Rosenberg
Peter has over thirty years of experience working with plan sponsors, managers and investors on the full range of ERISA issues, including fiduciary activity, prohibited transactions and exemptions, plan asset regulations, and plan governance; to structure successful transactions that are subject to ERISA, or that successfully avoid ERISA. Having practiced during the development and evolution of ERISA, Peter knows that the current regulatory climate can pose challenges for fiduciaries, and he works with clients to help ensure that their transactions are ERISA-compliant without undue burden on their business objectives. With a depth of expertise in ERISA’s Title I and its impact on his clients’ business interests and goals, Peter provides straightforward, user-friendly advice that highlights his understanding of his clients’ priorities. Clients describe him as an “excellent technical lawyer” who provides advice that is “geared toward [his client’s] business” with “thoughtfulness and wisdom.” Peter has formerly served as the partner in charge of the firm's ERISA and employee benefits practice group.
Randall Bodner
Randall Bodner
Partner, Member of the Policy CommitteeRandy, who is a member of Ropes & Gray’s governing Policy Committee and former head of the firm’s business and securities litigation practice group, focuses on securities litigation, corporate governance matters, deal-related litigation, contentious insolvency litigation, securities enforcement matters, D&O insurance coverage, and other complex commercial disputes. Called “an engaged, passionate advocate of superior creativity” by Chambers USA, Randy has considerable experience in both the courtroom and the boardroom from his successful representations of corporations, financial services companies, private equity clients, hedge funds and individual officers and directors in corporate and securities disputes across the country. Randy has also conducted numerous internal investigations for clients involving highly sensitive matters, successfully defended against investigations and threatened actions by the SEC, DOJ and other government agencies, and guided companies through grand jury investigations to avoid criminal prosecution.
Richard Batchelder, Jr.
Richard Batchelder, Jr.
He has advised many of the firm’s private equity clients and their portfolio companies in numerous capacities, such as analyzing litigation risk in proposed transactions, representing them in court post-acquisition, and in bankruptcy-related litigation. In addition, Richard actively participates in the data, privacy & cybersecurity group, helping clients respond to incidents and defending them in any related proceedings. Richard’s experience in this area includes defending TJX and Target in class action lawsuits brought by financial institutions in the wake of two of the largest data breaches in U.S. history.
Rocky Tsai
Rocky Tsai
Rocky Tsai, a litigation partner in the San Francisco office, represents a broad range of financial, technology and life sciences clients in securities and commercial disputes, with a particular emphasis on the defense and resolution of complex class action litigation. His experience includes litigation counseling and front-line representation in securities class actions, consumer class actions, M&A litigation, SEC and FINRA investigations, and false advertising and unfair competition litigation. He has handled cases in multidistrict litigation, in arbitration, and in federal and state court trials and appeals. Mr. Tsai is a member of the Associate Development Committee, Pro Bono Committee, and Diversity Committee at Ropes & Gray.
Stephen Warnke
Stephen Warnke
Stephen Warnke represents a wide range of health care clients on state and federal regulatory, enforcement and compliance matters. Most recently, he is helping clients navigate a myriad of legal and regulatory issues associated with the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Stephen’s clients include not-for profit teaching hospitals and medical schools, managed care organizations, investor-owned health care and pharmaceutical companies, and community-based providers of health, mental health and social services. Stephen advises clients on Medicare, Medicaid and other government funding programs; state and federal fraud and abuse authorities, including the Stark physician self-referral and anti-kickback statutes; the repayment and disclosure obligations that arise from overpayments and improper relationships with referral source physicians; the design and implementation of corporate compliance programs; and the increasingly aggressive use of the state and federal civil false claims statutes by prosecutors and the “qui tam” bar.
Steven Wilcox
Steven Wilcox
Steve Wilcox focuses his practice on mergers and acquisitions, corporate financing transactions (including public offerings and venture capital investments) and licensing and collaborations. Most of his clients are engaged in the biotech, medical device and pharmaceutical industries. In addition to transactional work, he regularly counsels companies on a range of federal securities and corporate governance matters. Steve is a founder and former chair of the firm’s life sciences practice group.
Steven Rutkovsky
Steven Rutkovsky
Steve focuses on complex leveraged finance and fund finance transactions. He represents private equity funds, credit funds, and public and private companies in a wide range of financings, including leverage buyouts, acquisitions, dividend recaps, fund subscription lines and leverage facilities, involving both syndicated and privately place debt at all levels of the capital structure. Steve is chair of the firm’s Opinion Practices Committee.  
Timothy McCrystal
Timothy McCrystal
Tim McCrystal is the co-chair of the health care practice group. Tim has over thirty years of experience advising health care providers, companies and investors on cutting-edge regulatory matters and transactions. Most recently, Tim has been counseling clients impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic by providing critical guidance around issues related to operational preparedness and business continuity planning, among others. In addition, Tim has extensive experience in structuring and negotiating health care affiliations, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, hospital-physician relationships, medical practice acquisitions, formation and reorganization of multi-institutional health care systems, and a variety of contractual arrangements and general business transactions.  Clients from all sectors of the health care industry also turn to Tim for counseling on a wide range of compliance matters, including the development and fine-tuning of their compliance programs. Tim has counseled clients at every stage of their compliance program lifecycle: initial development and implementation, routine assessment and audit, and periodic evaluation and revision. Tim is also a recognized expert in the field of privacy and cybersecurity. He regularly advises clients on the full array of data privacy, protection and security matters relating to the HIPAA privacy and security rules. Tim has represented clients in highly publicized settlements with the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights stemming from alleged data breaches relating to the loss or theft of protected health information.
Will Shields
Will Shields
Will Shields was elevated to a member of Ropes & Gray's policy committee, the firm's global governing body, from co-chair of the private equity transactions group. He is also a partner in the Boston office. His practice focuses on representing private equity firms and public and private companies in mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts and other direct investments. Will also represents investment management firms in connection with strategic transactions including mergers and acquisitions, divestitures and restructurings.  

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