Austin – Global law firm K&L Gates LLP has added Andrea Cunha as a partner in the health care practice. She joins K&L Gates’ Austin office from Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP.

Cunha focuses her practice on health care transactions and regulatory compliance counseling, advising health care providers and owners of financially distressed assets. As former general counsel of a regional health system, she has extensive experience counseling on matters including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, contract negotiations and management, HIPAA and HITECH Act compliance, clinical laboratory compliance, change of ownership procedures, bankruptcy, and negotiations with the Department of Justice and the Office of Civil Rights, among others. She also advises on intellectual property assets and strategic interests, and non-compete, non-disclosure, and employer agreements, as well as capital-raising and venture capital activities. 

Mary Beth Johnston, co-leader of K&L Gates’ health care and FDA practice, commented: “We could not be more pleased about Andrea joining our health care transactions and regulatory practice. She adds exceptional depth to our global health care practice, while at the same time increasing our presence in Texas, where we now have substantive health care practitioners in Dallas, Houston, and Austin.”

Cunha’s arrival follows the addition of a number of health care partners to the firm this year, including Don Walker in Houston earlier this month, as well as Matthew Miller, Ken Marlow, Kim Looney, Stephen Page, and Wells Beckett, with whom Cunha previously worked at Waller before they helped to establish K&L Gates’ new Nashville office with nearly 30 other lawyers during the first quarter of 2021. They are among the nearly 65 partners who have joined the firm since January 2020.

“We are excited to have Andrea join K&L Gates,” said Jack Erskine, managing partner of K&L Gates’ Austin office. “Her depth of experience is a valuable addition to the firm as we continue to expand and diversify our practices and client offerings in Austin.”
 
K&L Gates’ health care lawyers represent clients across the care continuum – from premier academic medical centers and hospitals and health systems to home health agencies and hospices, pharmacies, clinical labs, durable medical equipment suppliers, and long-term care providers – on a variety of state and federal regulatory and compliance issues, investigations, transactions, and litigation.