Eric Klein

Eric A. Klein is Team Leader of the 150+ attorney national healthcare practice, which was named by Law360 as the 2016 and 2014 U.S. Health Care Practice Group of the Year. He is a partner in the Century City office of Sheppard Mullin, a full service AmLaw Global 100 law firm with offices throughout California, New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., London, Brussels, Beijing, Seoul and Shanghai.

With over thirty years of practical legal and business experience, his practice focuses on the healthcare, technology and related industries. Known in the business community for his creative solutions and deal-making ability, Eric uses deep industry knowledge, entrepreneurial solutions, sophisticated negotiation skills and effective legal process to meet the complex business and legal needs of both established and emerging companies.

Eric is one of the most active physician group and hospital M&A lawyers, having advised on more than 60% of all major managed care physician group transactions in the Western U.S. in the past 5 years. Eric represents physician groups, hospitals, health plans, ancillary service providers and private equity and strategic investors.

He works with publicly traded and privately held companies across the country and advises both for-profit and non-profit clients on mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances and joint ventures, operational and contracting matters, strategic planning, HMO licensing and compliance, regulatory matters and information technology transactions.

In the hospital sector, Eric has led 50 hospital purchase/sale and joint venture projects in the last 10 years and has worked on hospital networks, conversion of non-profit hospitals into for-profit hospitals, credit facilities for hospitals, establishment and acquisition of outpatient treatment centers, outsourcing of hospital departments and hospital syndications.

He also has assisted with payor contracting and disputes, governmental investigations and licensing, and hospital-physician contracts and joint ventures. He also recently assisted with several revenue cycle management projects.

In the area of Knox-Keene HMO regulation, Eric is working on multiple Knox-Keene applications and we represent half of all currently licensed restricted Knox-Keene HMO license holders in California, and obtained a majority of all restricted Knox-Keene health plan licenses granted in California in the past three years.

He obtained a Knox-Keene license for a new vision services plan in nine months, one of the fastest licensure processes in the history of the Department of Managed Health Care. He has assisted Knox-Keene plans with licensure issues, compliance and corrective action plans, restructuring, acquisitions and disposition of plans, holding company structures and credit facilities.

Eric also lectures nationally on negotiation skills and has trained many business leaders, investment bankers, lawyers and entrepreneurs in basic and advanced negotiation techniques. He is a frequent lecturer and has been a featured speaker at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association National Summit, the California Association of Physician Groups annual meeting, the Hospital Association of Southern California annual meeting, Health Care Executives, HealthLaw 2.0 and other trade associations.

Education:

• J.D., Boston University School of Law, 1985
• A.B., Princeton University, 1981, magna cum laude

Admissions:

• California, 1986
• U.S. District Court, Northern District of California

Memberships:

• Director, Association for Corporate Growth Los Angeles
• Member, American Health Lawyers Association
• Member, California Society for Healthcare Attorneys