About Christopher M. Locke

Christopher Locke has the right experience and knowledge to guide health care entities through transactions that affect their businesses. His decades of involvement in a variety of transactions allow him to explain deal terms in ways that are meaningful to clients. Whether he is representing a professional practice, hospital system, management company or medical device manufacturer, he is able to understand and negotiate terms to accomplish their strategic goals.

Trusted advisor for major transactions

Health care entities trust Christopher with major transactions relating to their businesses. Deals that he works on regularly include purchases and sales of professional practices by private equity-backed entities (both seller and buyer sides), hospital system acquisitions, joint ventures and other arrangements with professional practices, other hospital systems and universities, and regulatory and structural compliance for telehealth entities, in particular behavioral health. Negotiating and drafting these sometimes-complex agreements are just one aspect of Christopher's work. He is a trusted advisor, in part, because he provides as much business insight as legal counsel.

Many of Katten's health care clients rely on Christopher to serve as their outside general counsel, as his broad industry knowledge gives him the insight to advise management and boards of directors on a range of issues. Clients also turn to him for sensitive government investigations, benefiting from his experience as a former special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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Practice Focus

  • Health care transactions
  • Medicare and Medicaid fraud and abuse and other regulatory matters
  • Corporate, securities and employment issues related to health care industry clients

Representative Experience

  • Represented a national anesthesia private equity fund-backed management entity in its acquisition of numerous anesthesia practices and management companies in a variety of states.
  • Represented gastroenterology practices in Arkansas, Arizona, Indiana, California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey and Tennessee in sales transactions with private equity fund-backed management entities.
  • Represented urology practices in Colorado, New York and Tennessee in sale transactions with private equity fund-backed management entities.
  • Represented emergency department staffing practice in Illinois in a sale transaction with a private equity fund-backed management entity.
  • Represented an ophthalmology practice in Florida in a sale transaction with a private equity fund-backed management entity.
  • Represented a radiology practice in the US Virgin Islands in a sale transaction with a private equity fund-backed radiology practice.
  • Represented an ambulatory surgical center in Maryland and its owners in the sale of 60% of its outstanding equity to a national management company and subsequent repurchase of such facility.
  • Represented numerous behavioral health telehealth providers and associated management companies in formation and expansion across state lines and advised as to regulatory and structural issues.
  • Represented a national hospital system in a joint venture with a university medical center with respect to a rehabilitation hospital in New Mexico.
  • Represented a national hospital system in the acquisition of assets and assumption of operations of a rural hospital in Oklahoma.

Presentations and Events

  • December 13, 2022
    20th Annual Washington Health Law Summit | ABA Health Law Section
    Panelist | Healthcare Provider Non-Compete Restrictive Covenants: Recent Developments for Employment and Transactions
  • September 17, 2022
    ABA Business Law Section Hybrid Annual Meeting 2022 | Health Law and Life Sciences Committee
    Presenter | Practicing Telehealth Across State Borders and Business Meeting
  • November 5, 2020
    Speaker