Overview
For her longstanding business and corporate, health care, construction, and real estate clients in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts, Susan works diligently and draws on her business and legal background to understand their business and legal needs, providing innovative yet practical solutions to their pressing problems. With her in-depth experience and years of counseling executives and senior management, Susan effectively assists clients to minimize potential litigation and disputes.
From high-stakes acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures and strategic alliances, from negotiation and drafting construction documents for owners, design professionals, and contractors, to all aspects of the construction process, including land acquisition and project financing to documentation, from secured lending and other forms of corporate finance structuring, to corporate governance and business succession planning, Susan provides her clients with strategic counsel and advice.
Susan is also adept at advising health care professionals and institutional providers across a wide spectrum of issues, including licensing, managed-care products, provider agreements, employment relationships, medical fraud and abuse, regulatory compliance, and medical-staff organization and credentialing. Susan is a member of the American Health Lawyers Association and, for more than five years, served as the legal writer for the monthly Health Care Professional.
Susan is a frequent pro bono speaker to legal, charitable, and community groups and published author on legal and ethics topics.
Experience
- When the largest multi-location medical practice in a particular specialty in Rhode Island, wanted to sell their practice to a national private equity firm, Susan worked with the stockholders who were at different stages of their professional careers, each with different objectives, to help achieve consensus. She negotiated the sale of the assets of three affiliated entities (the professional practice, the management company, and the equipment company) as well as leases for each of the locations, the employment agreements of each of the physicians and their agreements with the buyer’s parent company in which each physician received an equity interest. This type of transaction required expertise and a highly specialized focus, not only in corporate transactions and tax, but also in the health care regulatory area, to help achieve clients’ diverse objectives.
- When a national designer and manufacturer of premium paperboard packaging for all products and industries sought to sell its company to an Italian—based global packaging group, Susan provided legal representation and strategy to negotiate a transaction that achieved all the client’s goals. The sale involved a significant number of international tax and accounting issues. In addition, the timing of the consummation of the transaction was very complicated, as the sale was one component of a multipart acquisition with a simultaneous merger of the target companies and their conversion into a new United States subsidiary, and Susan kept the deal on track and on schedule.
- When the owner of a major multi-state plumbing and heating supply company wanted to sell his equity to the world’s largest manufacturer of heating, cooling, and refrigerant products, Susan negotiated the terms of the sale, a long-term consulting agreement for the owner, and leases for all the seller’s locations in the different states. The seller’s company was an existing distributor of several of the buyer’s residential unitary and light commercial products, and Susan’s legal representation allowed a smooth transition for the owner to capitalize on his long history of successful operations as well as a mutually well-developed and profitable relationship with a significant supplier.
- When an out-of-state, for-profit hospice provider wanted to obtain a license from the Rhode Island Department of Health, Susan helped the client navigate its way through the regulatory process, anticipating and overcoming all objections raised and challenges encountered. She helped demonstrate to the state agency and other interested parties that a for-profit healthcare provider could deliver high-quality services and be a good corporate citizen.
- When the founders of a successful closely-held business wanted to structure a transfer of ownership to their children as well as to certain longtime employees, Susan devised and implemented a transition plan that enabled a harmonious relationship among the directors and the shareholders, with mechanisms for decision-making to avoid deadlock and dissipation of the assets and to promote the long-term success and welfare of the company.
- When a local company was in danger of defaulting on a substantial loan to Susan’s European client and a major supplier to the Rhode Island corporation, Susan negotiated a conversion of the debt to a controlling equity interest in the company to protect her client’s interests and provide a continued source of future sales.
Credentials
- Boston University School of Law (J.D., 1979)
- Providence College (M.B.A., 1986)
- Wheaton College (B.A., magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, 1970)
- Rhode Island
- Massachusetts
- U.S. Supreme Court
- U.S. District Court, District of Rhode Island
- U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts
- Rhode Island Bar Association Supreme Court Judge Florence K. Murray Award.
- Recognized in Chambers USA America’s Leading Business Lawyers in the area of Corporate/Commercial law.
- Charter Fellow, Construction Lawyers Society of America.
- Rhode Island Bar Association Award of Merit.
- Professional Excellence in the Law, Health Care, Rhode Island Monthly 2019 – 2024.
- Rhode Island Bar Association Ralph P. Semonoff Professionalism Award.
- Selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers In America® since 1995 in the field of Health Care Law and also in the area of closely-held businesses.
- Named a Rhode Island Super Lawyer, 2007-2021.
- Rhode Island Supreme Court Citation for outstanding service on Disciplinary Board.
- AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell, its highest rating for attorneys.
- Authored chapter in A Practical Guide to Organizing a Business in Rhode Island titled “Ethics Considerations in Representing the Business Entity” initially released Spring 2011.
- Former editor-in-chief, Rhode Island Bar Journal.
- Former legal writer for the monthly Health Care Professional (five years).
- Frequent lecturer for the Rhode Island Bar Association on business and corporate law, health care law, real estate law and proactive management and ethics issues.
- Frequent seminar presenter on topics of corporate law, health care law, practice management, and legal ethics.
- Past member, Rhode Island Commission on Judicial Tenure and Discipline.
- Past President, Rhode Island Bar Association.
- Member, House of Delegates, Rhode Island Bar Association.
- Past President, Member, Board of Directors and Fellow, Rhode Island Bar Foundation.
- Fellow, American Bar Foundation.
- Former Chair, Rhode Island Supreme Court Disciplinary Board.
- Member, Massachusetts Bar Association and American Bar Association.
- Member, American Health Lawyers Association.
- Member, Lawyers Helping Lawyers Committee, Rhode Island Bar Association.
- Judicial law clerk to Chief Justice Joseph R. Weisberger, Rhode Island Supreme Court
- Member, Trial Law Institute, Construction Lawyers Society of America.
- Member, Diversity Law Institute, Construction Lawyers Society of America.
- Member, Board of Trustees, Jewish Community Day School of Rhode Island.
- Former Vice Chair, Board of Directors, Quonset Development Corporation.
- President, Classical High School Alumni Association.
- Immediate Past President, URI Hillel Foundation.
- Past President, Jewish Seniors Agency.
- Chair, Women’s Alliance Endowment Fund, and former Vice Chair and Member, Board of Directors, Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island.
- Former Vice Chair, The Miriam Hospital.
- IOLTA Grants Chair, Rhode Island Bar Foundation.
- Past Chair, Rhode Island Foundation, Professional Advisory Council.
