Dorsey & Whitney Launches Health Care Consulting Group

Dorsey Health Strategies offers unique blend of
industry expertise and health care legal counsel

Dorsey & Whitney LLP has launched a unique health care consulting service to complement the firm’s premier health care practice group.

Dorsey Health Strategies ("DHS") will deliver to health care clients integrated, multidisciplinary business advisory solutions to meet their strategic goals.
Often working in conjunction with Dorsey’s health attorneys, Dorsey Health Strategies focuses on offering strategic consulting and planning, governance and management counsel, business, transactional and regulatory guidance, and risk management compliance to the health care industry.

Clients that Dorsey Health Strategies will serve include hospitals, specialty physician groups, managed care companies and med-tech firms. While DHS enables clients to conveniently utilize integrated law and consulting capabilities to address their strategic questions, clients can retain such services separately as well.

DHS is composed of principals, consultants and analysts, and is affiliated with members of Dorsey’s Health Care Practice group. Daniel Zismer, Ph.D., a long-time health care industry professional formerly with Towers Perrin Health Care Consulting and Allina, will serve as Managing Principal.

He is joined by Michael Butler, who also previously a health care consultant with Towers Perrin. Dorsey Health Care Practice group partners Forrest Burke, James Lynch, David Melloh, Neal Peterson and Claire Topp round out the primary group of practitioners, offering legal as well as business advisory services on behalf of DHS.

"In my nearly 20 years in the health care industry, I’ve seen a definite advantage to providing integrated multidisciplinary consulting services to health care organizations," said Dan Zismer. "Dorsey Health Strategies is in a great position to help assist clients with the challenges on the health care horizon."

"With both consulting and legal expertise, Dorsey Health Strategies is uniquely positioned to offer a wide range of services dealing with high-stakes health care industry issues." said Forrest Burke, a principal with Dorsey Health Strategies and Chair of Dorsey’s Health Care Practice group. "Dorsey Health Strategies helps organizations with strategic development projects, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and physician/hospital alignment efforts among other services."

"Our health care practice already has an outstanding reputation for providing trusted legal counsel and value to our clients," said Pete Hendrixson, Managing Partner of Dorsey & Whitney LLP. "Dorsey Health Strategies adds a depth of business knowledge and provides a complementary array of professional services that is comprehensive and anticipates a client’s needs across a spectrum of business, financial and legal issues."

About Dorsey Health Strategies
Dorsey Health Strategies is a health care consulting service of Dorsey & Whitney LLP. Dorsey Health Strategies melds industry expertise with health care legal counsel to provide strategic planning, governance and management counsel, business and transactional guidance, risk management and compliance advice, and other services to the health care industry. Dorsey Health Strategies is based in Minneapolis.
About Dorsey & Whitney

Dorsey & Whitney is an international law firm with more than 750 lawyers in Minneapolis, Seattle, New York, Washington, D.C., Denver, London, Brussels, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Toronto, Vancouver and ten other U.S. regional offices. One of the world’s largest firms, Dorsey & Whitney has experienced strong growth worldwide – almost doubling in size during the last four years.

Contact:

David Melloh
Dorsey Health Strategies
612.340.8873
[email protected]

Forrest Burke
Dorsey Health Strategies
612.340.6321
[email protected]

Dan Zismer
Dorsey Health Strategies
612.492.6411
[email protected]

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2001 MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS RANKINGS:
DORSEY & WHITNEY TAKES TOP SPOT

Firm sees 17.6 percent volume increase;

Top 25 firms drop 32.6 percent

Dorsey & Whitney LLP today announced that its Mergers & Acquisitions Group regained the top ranking among legal advisors for the number of domestic mergers, sales and purchases of businesses completed in 2001, according to Thomson Financial.

Dorsey & Whitney saw a significant increase in M&A volume – more than 17 percent, while volume for the top 25 M&A firms dropped nearly 33 percent compared with 2000. Dorsey was one of just four firms in the top 25 to see an increase in deals completed over last year. Thomson Financial reports that Dorsey & Whitney completed 287 deals, up from 244 in 2000. Thomson Financial is a Newark-based provider of financial information and services, including merger and financing rankings and information.

The recession that began in March of 2001 has hit the M&A market especially hard. The dollar value of all M&A deals plummeted from $1.74 trillion in 2000 to $819 billion in 2001. The volume of transactions has dropped dramatically, as well. There were more than 11,000 domestic mergers and acquisitions completed, last year. For 2001, that number dropped to just 7,500, according to Thomson Financial.
"The market for mergers and acquisitions has seen an unprecedented drop in the past few years, but our M&A Group continues to realize strong growth across all of Dorsey’s U.S. offices," said William B. Payne, head of Dorsey & Whitney’s Mergers & Acquisitions group. "Dorsey continues to be the leader in this market because our clients trust our legal expertise, as well as our understanding of their business strategy."

Dorsey & Whitney is one of the only firms consistently at the top of Thomson Financial’s mergers and acquisitions rankings for the past five years.

Dorsey & Whitney’s M&A Group, with advisors in 22 domestic and international offices, regularly represents buyers and sellers of businesses.