Attorneys' Division General Counsel Speakers

Mike Altschuler, Comvest Partners
Michael serves as Chief Administrative Officer & General Counsel, and is responsible for Comvest’s administrative operations and legal function. Prior to joining Comvest, Michael spent five years as the general counsel and corporate secretary for a NYSE listed finance company. Earlier in his career, Michael was a Director & Counsel at UBS Investment Bank where he had legal responsibility for high-yield originations and bridge lending and also practiced as a securities and capital markets attorney with Latham & Watkins LLP. Michael received a J.D. from Columbia Law School, an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.A. from the University of Michigan.

Sabra M. Baum is Senior Vice President, Deputy General Counsel, at M&T Bank in New York. Sabra reports to the General Counsel of M&T and heads the Corporate Legal Division, which supports corporate governance, securities laws, M&A, privacy, cybersecurity, employment, internal investigations, employment litigation and bank regulatory. Prior to heading the Corporate Legal Division, Sabra established and then headed the Enterprise-Wide Legal Division, which supported all enterprise legal functions from a legal perspective, including procurement, third party risk, intellectual property, corporate real estate and compliance programs. Before that, Sabra headed the Wealth and Institutional Services Division of the Legal department, providing oversight for legal support of the Wilmington Trust wealth, trust, private banking, asset management and global capital markets trust and custody business lines.

Prior to joining M&T, Sabra practiced as an M&A and corporate attorney at firms in New York City, including Davis Polk & Wardwell and General Electric. Sabra commenced her career in Australia, practicing as a commercial and corporate attorney at law firms in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne. Sabra is admitted to the bar in New York and Australia, and as in-house counsel in Florida.

David Leibowitz, Braman Management Association
David is Secretary and General Counsel of the Braman automobile dealership group. He is the chief legal officer responsible for all litigation, risk compliance, licensing, human resource management, and transactional work for a dealership group that employs more than 1900 people across 9 rooftops in Florida and Colorado. Prior to joining Braman in 2012, David was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York for 9 years. David received his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, a Ph.D. in Government from the London School of Economics, and a B.A. in American History and Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania.

Richard Siegel, H.I.G. Capital
Rich has been General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of H.I.G. Capital since 2005. He is responsible for all of the firm’s legal, regulatory and compliance matters worldwide. Prior to joining H.I.G., Rich was Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Ryder System, a Fortune 350 global transportation and logistics company, and General Counsel of a private investment firm headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Rich began his legal career in the New York and Melbourne, Australia offices of Sullivan & Cromwell and served as a Judicial Clerk for Andrew G.T. Moore II, of the Delaware Supreme Court. Rich received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and earned a B.S. in Finance from the University of Maryland.

Moderator: Jerry Sokol
Jerry J. Sokol concentrates his national practice on the business aspects of healthcare law with an emphasis on mergers and acquisitions, private equity and various contractual arrangements in the healthcare industry. He is chair of the Firm’s national Health Transactions Group and managing partner of the Miami office. Jerry has a robust healthcare private equity practice with a focus on leveraged buyout transactions. Jerry has had a 25-year practice focus on the acquisitions and sales of large medical practices. His focus in this area dates back to the mid-1990s. He has substantial experience rolling up physician practices in a wide range of physician specialties (e.g., dermatology, ophthalmology, gastroenterology, dental, orthopedics, urology, radiology, anesthesia, ER, pain). Jerry and his team are particularly adept at establishing and executing upon effective acquisition strategies for physician practice management companies. These strategies include adopting cutting-edge structures to protect the investment and position the PPM for growth by properly incentivizing physicians and ensuring their commitment to the enterprise, which is paramount for successful PPM companies.

Jerry has also developed a particular niche representing ambulatory surgery center (ASC) companies with all of their transactional and regulatory needs. His ASC transactional practice ranges from syndicating start-up ASCs, effectuating the sales of equity interests in existing ASCs to physicians, and buying and selling significant equity positions in ASCs on behalf of and to large corporate buyers and health systems.