Locke Lord LLP issued the following announcement on Feb. 4.
Joseph Maher, who most recently served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Steward Health Care System LLC before announcing in 2018 his intent to retire, has rejoined Locke Lord’s Boston office as Senior Counsel in the Firm’s Health Care Practice Group. He brings to Locke Lord decades of experience and extensive firsthand knowledge of the health care industry and government relations throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and has long been an active member of the Greater Boston community.
At Steward, where he worked for more than 10 years, Maher served as a key member of the executive team, the body that steered the multibillion-dollar health system during a time of immense growth. His responsibilities included working with offshore captive insurance companies and interfacing with Steward’s outside counsel. Maher also played an active role overseeing Steward’s government affairs and participated in many of Boston’s and the nation’s largest hospital merger transactions and other hospital-physician ventures.
“Joe has been an invaluable part of the team at our Firm and at Steward, the largest private, for-profit hospital operator in the United States and a valued Locke Lord client,” said Matt McTygue, Managing Partner of Locke Lord’s Boston office. “He is extremely knowledgeable and experienced working at the intersection of health care and public policy, and leaders in both areas hold him in high regard. We’re thrilled to welcome him back to Locke Lord.”
Maher is an alumnus of two Locke Lord predecessor firms, having started at Edwards & Angell in 1987. He served as Partner-in-Charge of the Boston office and also Chaired the Firm’s Health Care and Governmental Affairs Practices. He later became a Partner at Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge. At Locke Lord, Maher will be actively involved in the national Health Care and Government Relations Practice Groups, develop new business and provide to the Firm’s clients his deep industry knowledge and experience in sophisticated transactions and health care reform, as well as local, state and federal legislative experience.
“I have known and respected Joe for nearly 30 years, and he is a highly skilled lawyer with a collaborative spirit. A lawyer with experience like Joe’s is not easy to come by, and Locke Lord’s Health Care Practice Group across the country will benefit from his unique insight and his network of meaningful connections throughout the industry,” said Jed Hendrick, Co-Chair of Locke Lord’s Public Law and Policy Practice Group and a Partner in the Firm’s Boston office.
Maher has served as Vice Chairman on the Board of University Hospital and was instrumental in transforming the Boston University-affiliated teaching hospital into Boston Medical Center, as it is known today. At the same time, he served as Vice Chairman on the Board of Faulkner Hospital, which is now known as Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital. Maher negotiated the merger between Faulkner and the Brigham and Women’s hospital system pro bono.
“I have always thought of Locke Lord as a collegial place to work that strongly emphasizes community service in addition to providing excellent service to clients. In the years since I last worked for the Firm, Locke Lord has continued to strengthen its deservedly great reputation,” Maher said. “While at Steward, I was fortunate to work with many of the Locke Lord lawyers I will now be privileged to again call my colleagues, and I am thrilled to grow my practice alongside them in the Firm’s highly regarded Health Care Practice Group.”
Original source can be found here.