WASHINGTON, DC (LAWFUEL) – January 8, 2009 The law firm Ober|Kaler announced today that William E. Berlin, a principal in the firm’s Health Law and Complex Civil Litigation Groups, has been selected by Nightingale’s Healthcare News for its 2008 ranking of “Outstanding Healthcare Antitrust Lawyers.” He is one of only ten lawyers from across the country selected for inclusion.
Mr. Berlin’s law practice is centered on antitrust litigation and counseling. He represents
hospitals, health systems, health insurance plans, and physicians, primarily in private litigation but also in federal antitrust enforcement agency actions. He focuses on exclusionary conduct by dominant firms, mergers, and contracting provisions or other collaborative activity between hospitals, physicians and health plans. Mr. Berlin’s private and government agency litigation frequently requires managing complex procedural issues, including large-scale electronic document discovery. Recently, Mr. Berlin and other Ober|Kaler attorneys successfully obtained dismissal on behalf of a large acute-care hospital in a suit alleging antitrust claims based on revoking the privileges of physician-investors in a specialty hospital and payor contracting. (LRCC v. Baptist Health, E.D. Ark., Aug. 29, 2008).
Formerly a Trial Attorney with the Health Care Task Force and later the Litigation I Section of the Antitrust Division, Mr. Berlin has led investigations and litigation of both merger and non-merger civil antitrust cases in healthcare and other market sectors, including leading the Antitrust Division’s successful five-year litigation in U.S. v. Dentsply International, Inc. He also managed the Joint DOJ/FTC Hearings on Healthcare and Competition Law and Policy in 2003 on behalf of the Department of Justice and was a moderator for several sessions during the Hearings.
Mr. Berlin is a member of the American Bar Association’s Antitrust Section, Healthcare Committee; the Virginia State Bar; and the American Health Lawyers Association’s
Antitrust Practice Group.
He is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law (J.D., 1988) and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (B.A., cum laude, 1985). He resides in Arlington, Virginia.
