Ever since Husch Blackwell acquired Wisconsin firm Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek in 2016, it has aimed to expand its health care practice in the state.

The Missouri-based Am Law 200 firm advanced that goal in its Madison, Wisconsin, office this month by adding eight lawyers from Godfrey & Kahn, led by partners Tom Shorter, Jed Roher and Jon Anderson, and another group of four from Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren led by partners Meg Pekarske and Bryan Nowicki.

"We had an existing Wisconsin health care practice, but this more than doubled the size of our presence in Wisconsin, and our health care group on a national basis deepened its expertise," said Curt Chase, a partner in Kansas City, Missouri, who heads the firm's health care, life sciences and education industry team.

Chase said the Reinhart Boerner group brought a specialized hospice and palliative care practice to the firm, while the Godfrey & Kahn team does a range of work for health care clients including mergers and acquisitions, affiliation work and labor and employment.

The practice head said he's known Shorter for several years and once they started talking about joining forces, "the more we realized we had a like vision about how to service our clients." He said Shorter then introduced him to Pekarske and her group.

Both Shorter and Pekarske said moving to Husch Blackwell provides them with not only a larger geographic reach, thanks to the firm's network of offices in 18 U.S. cities, but also access to expertise in numerous areas niches within the health care practice, such as Medicare reimbursement and compliance issues.

Shorter said his group's clients include Gundersen Health System and Mercyhealth. Pekarske declined to identify her clients.

With the dozen lateral hires, Husch Blackwell has about 140 health care lawyers. The lawyers who joined the firm over the first two weeks of January also include partners Tom O'Day, senior counsel Peggy Barlett, and associates Kelsey Anderson, Bill Foley and Matthew Ludden, all from Godfrey & Kahn; and associates Andrew Brenton and Erin Burns, both from Reinhart Boerner.

Jerome Janzer, CEO of Reinhart Boerner, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the departures from his firm. Neither did a spokesperson for Godfrey & Kahn.

Husch Blackwell also has an office in Milwaukee, where partner Bruce Arnold leads the health care practice.

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