RopesTalk

In the latest installment of Ropes & Gray’s alumni podcast series, Alumni @ RopesTalk, life sciences and health care partner Michael Beauvais interviews Julie Constable, vice president of legal and compliance at Blackstone. Julie spent almost a decade at Ropes & Gray as an associate before taking a senior legal role at Blackstone. Julie talks about what a typical day looks like in-house as she leads transactions emerging from the Blackstone Life Sciences team. She reflects on how Ropes & Gray prepared her for her position now by training her to think more critically. Julie also talks about the unique pro bono partnership between Ropes & Gray and Blackstone that she helped to develop, benefitting organizations such as The Innocence Project.

The Ropes & Gray Global Health Care Compliance Initiative’s virtual trip around the world podcast series highlights our collaboration with our local counsel contacts, in particular the Local Law Comparison Guide. The Local Law Comparison Guide (the “Guide”) is a resource tool providing country-specific surveys that analyze legal, regulatory and industry requirements governing industry interactions with health care professionals. As part of this series, Ropes & Gray attorneys interview our local counsel partners, who are based around the world and helped develop the Guide. These discussions highlight notable health care regulations and developments impacting compliance in our various countries. In this episode, we are joined by our partner in Mexico, Lourdes Salazar. Lourdes is an attorney at Von Wobeser. Alison Fethke, counsel at Ropes & Gray, discusses with Lourdes the regulatory regime in Mexico, key risks for compliance, and changes in law to be aware of.

The Ropes & Gray Decoding Digital Health podcast series discusses the digital health industry and related legal, business and regulatory issues. On this episode, IP transactions partner Regina Sam Penti joins the Digital Health Initiative co-leads, Kellie Combs, Christine Moundas and Megan Baca, to discuss the increasing prominence of artificial intelligence (“AI”) and machine learning technology in the health care and life sciences industry. The discussion reviews key applications of AI, the IP protections around machine-learning, transactional and licensing issues that arise in the context of AI, as well as the health care and FDA regulatory issues to consider.

In this Ropes & Gray podcast, litigation & enforcement partner Ryan Rohlfsen, who is co-chair of the firm’s global anti-corruption and international risk practice, is joined by Jerry Kral, SVP, chief risk, ethics & compliance officer at Brown-Forman Corporation, for an enthusiastic discussion about emerging risks and trends in the modern day market, as well as practical advice for the future.

In this episode of Women @ RopesTalk, IP transactions partner Megan Baca is joined by Kim McCaslin, a managing director at Bain Capital, for an in-depth conversation around Bain’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals and commitment to advance diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I). As the leader of Bain Capital’s portfolio group in North America, Kim discusses her group’s values-driven focus on growing great companies “in the right way”—with integrity, humility, respect for people, and a focus on citizenship and lasting impact. She breaks down how her group prioritizes ESG-related goals and provides insights about their innovative approach to strengthening diversity and inclusion, both at Bain and its portfolio companies.

In this special edition of Trainee Insights, Ropes & Gray London private equity associate and trainee supervisor, Matt Martindale, responds to a listener’s question about pro bono and explains how getting involved in pro bono activities can help trainees develop their skills.

In this seventh episode in a series of Ropes & Gray podcasts addressing emerging issues for fiduciaries of 401(k) and 403(b) plans to consider as part of their litigation risk management strategy, litigation & enforcement partner Dan Ward and ERISA and benefits partner Josh Lichtenstein discuss some recent updates on the continued ERISA retirement plan litigation landscape, including current trends and important takeaways for plan sponsors.

This edition of Ropes & Gray’s podcast series, Non-binding Guidance, focuses on one of the most fundamental concepts in FDA regulatory law: intended use. On August 2, FDA issued a final rule amending its drug and medical device regulations describing the types of evidence the Agency considers relevant to determining a product’s “intended use.” The new regulations just took effect on September 1. Join Kellie Combs, a partner in Ropes & Gray’s life sciences regulatory and compliance practice, Doug Hallward-Driemeier, a partner in the litigation & enforcement practice and head of the firm’s appellate & Supreme Court practice, and Josh Oyster, a senior associate in the life sciences regulatory and compliance practice group, as they discuss this final rule and what its implementation means for the drug and medical device industry.

With the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s rules governing security-based swaps under Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act poised to take effect this year, Ropes & Gray derivatives & commodities attorneys Molly Moore and Egan Cammack discuss issues that asset managers and other buy-side market participants will need to consider and steps they will need to take to prepare for this new regulatory regime.

The Ropes & Gray Global Health Care Compliance Initiative’s virtual trip around the world podcast series highlights our collaboration with our local counsel contacts, in particular the Local Law Comparison Guide. The Local Law Comparison Guide (the “Guide”) is a resource tool providing country-specific surveys that analyze legal, regulatory and industry requirements governing industry interactions with health care professionals. As part of this series, Ropes & Gray attorneys interview our local counsel partners, who are based around the world and helped develop the Guide. These discussions highlight notable health care regulations and developments impacting compliance in our local counsel partners’ respective countries. In this episode, we are joined by our partner in the Netherlands, Jacobine van Beijeren. Jacobine is a senior associate at Loyens & Loeff. Alison Fethke, counsel at Ropes & Gray, discusses with Jacobine the regulatory framework in the Netherlands and key risks for life sciences and health care clients. They also discuss emerging trends, such as the new medical device regime and how COVID-19 is changing practices and presenting new challenges.