Michael Best & Friedrich LLP: Health Law Practice Group Continues to Expand

For More Information:
Jennifer R. Rupkey
Director, Client Development
Phone: (414) 271-6560
E-Mail: jrrupkey@mbf-law.com

MILWAUKEE, WI – Michael Best & Friedrich announced today that two new partners have joined its Health Law Practice Group. The additions expand the firm’s breadth of services and strengthen Michael Best & Friedrich’s position as one of the nation’s top health care law resources.

Richard M. Seligman, 59, joins Michael Best & Friedrich’s Milwaukee office after spending 19 years as a partner with Katten Muchin Zavis Rosenman in Chicago. Mr. Seligman’s practice focuses on a wide range of insurance regulatory and corporate matters, as well as various forms of alternative liability risk financing and health insurance. In addition to representing captive insurers and self-insured health care providers, Mr. Seligman will also strengthen the firm’s corporate representation of insurers, insurance agents, third-party administrators and corporate clients.

A noted authority on insurance matters, Mr. Seligman has served as chief counsel to the Illinois Department of Insurance, and teaches “Insurance Organizations and Business” as an Adjunct Professor at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. Mr. Seligman earned a B.A. in economics and an M.S. in risk management and insurance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He earned his law degree from DePaul University, and also holds the professional insurance designation of Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU®).

Debbie McAllister has joined Michael Best & Friedrich’s Chicago office, where she will work to expand the firm’s growing health care regulatory compliance services. With more than 17 years of financial and operational experience in the health care industry, Ms. McAllister brings extensive knowledge of health care fraud issues and experience developing corporate compliance and risk assessment programs addressing matters ranging from federal tax law to regulations governing the development of new drugs, biologics and medical devices.

Ms. McAllister focuses her practice on helping Academic Medical Centers and community hospitals and health systems achieve and maintain regulatory compliance with the various federal agencies that regulate the conduct of clinical trials. In a former role, she was responsible for developing and directing the Research Regulatory and Consulting practice of a Big 4 accounting firm.

Ms. McAllister earned a B.C.S. in accounting and a J.D. from DePaul University, and is a Certified Public Accountant. She is a member of the American Health Lawyers Association.

“Richard and Debbie are wonderful additions,” said Robyn S. Shapiro, chair of the firm’s Health Law Practice Group. “We are proud to serve our clients with good people and exceptional legal talent that represents all facets of their businesses.”

Michael Best & Friedrich’s Health Law Practice Group consists of more than 50 attorneys, a significant number of whom dedicate their practice exclusively to the representation of health care clients, including integrated delivery systems and multi-provider networks, hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, individual and group practices, health care associations, clinical laboratories, imaging centers, community-based residential facilities, home health agencies, health care management consultants, health maintenance organizations, managed care networks and health insurance carriers.

Other attorneys in the Group practice in such areas as corporate (including mergers and acquisitions), labor and employee relations, tax, real estate, employee benefits, finance, antitrust, commercial law, intellectual property and litigation. Michael Best & Friedrich’s Health Law Practice Group was ranked by Nightingale’s Healthcare News (February 1, 2003) as one of the nation’s largest health care practices.

About Michael Best & Friedrich
Founded in 1848, Michael Best & Friedrich comprises nearly 350 attorneys in six locations, including Milwaukee, Madison, Waukesha and Manitowoc, Wisconsin; Chicago, Illinois; and Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. The firm provides a full range of legal services to clients on a regional, national and international basis in areas that include: business, corporate finance/securities, employment relations/ERISA, environmental, health care, intellectual property, international, litigation, real estate, taxation and wealth planning services. The firm has special teams, made up of attorneys from a cross-section of our practice areas, which focus on industry-related issues, including agribusiness, communications, construction, financial institutions, eBusiness, education, government & public policy, local government, products & tort liability, retail/distributions, trade associations and utility. Michael Best & Friedrich is the exclusive Wisconsin member of Lex Mundi (“Law of the World”), a network of more than 15,000 attorneys in more than 100 countries around the world.

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