Jorge Lopez Jr. heads the national health industry practice group at Akin Gump. The practice group’s clients include major academic medical centers, health care systems, manufacturers of drugs and devices, managed care enterprises, lenders and investors involved with health industry projects, and various other health care-related enterprises.
Mr. Lopez has more than two decades’ worth of experience advising these clients on a wide range of health regulatory and public policy issues. He has advised clients on many of the major Congressional health care initiatives considered in the past 20 years—including the Clinton Administration health care reform proposal, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, the Balanced Budget Refinement Act of 1999, and the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003—and the implementation of many of these initiatives by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He has particular experience in matters involving health care policy and regulation affecting cancer care, applications of the federal fraud and abuse laws to the hospital, pharmaceutical, pharmacy, and medical device industries, and issues relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and other state and federal privacy laws.
From October 1991 until November 1992, Mr. Lopez served as a legal adviser to Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign. He advised the campaign on delegate selection, ballot access, electoral college and other matters.
Mr. Lopez was nationally ranked as a top healthcare lawyer in the 2008, 2009 and 2010 editions of Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business. He is very active in charitable organizations in the Washington, D.C. community. He has served on the board of directors of the D.C.-area Catholic Charities or one of its affiliates since 1985. He was board chairman of one of these affiliates, Anchor Mental Health, a large provider of services to mentally disabled adults in the D.C. area, from April 2003 to June 2004.
Mr. Lopez received his B.A. summa cum laude in 1980 and his M.A. in economics in 1981 from the Catholic University of America. He received his J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1984. Mr. Lopez is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and is admitted to practice before a number of federal district courts and circuit courts of appeals. He is also a member of the American Health Lawyers Association.