Deborah L Gersh

Practice Areas

Deborah Gersh is the co-chair of Ropes & Gray’s nationally recognized health care practice and the co-leader of the firm’s Health Care and Life Sciences Industry Group. Deborah also actively participates in the data, privacy & cybersecurity group. Industry leaders view Debbie as a trailblazer and “go-to” advisor for highly sophisticated and novel transactions as well as the complex regulatory regimes implicated by such transactions. Throughout the pandemic, Deborah has been advising clients on issues related to COVID-19, such as relief funding, crisis standards of care, and privacy and other constitutional issues involved by contact tracing. Ropes & Gray was the 2020 firm award winner of the Financial Times Enabling Businesses Response to Covid-19.

As an early thought leader on value-based care (“VBC”), Deborah has counseled many clients through the implementation of a broad range of VBC initiatives, including novel partnership among non-traditional players, new business models and structures aimed at supporting population management and collaborations related to digital health. She is frequently quoted in key industry publications and presents extensively on VBC.

Deborah is also recognized as a leading practitioner on data protection, including privacy and cyber-security as well as the use, aggregation and monetization of data. Deborah advises clients on an array of data privacy, protection and security matters under HIPAA, state privacy and security laws, and emerging guidance arising from the coronavirus pandemic. She has represented clients involved in high-profile security incidents involving protected health and other sensitive personal information. Her representation has included matters involving the United States Department of Health and Human Services and Office for Civil Rights, as well as HIPAA security audits and qui tam actions initiated by state and federal government authorities. She was part of the firm’s team that secured a landmark victory for LabMD in its dispute with the FTC over the company’s security practices. Deborah has advised clients on novel data use issues, including the use of online tracking technologies such as Google Analytics and Meta Pixel on patient-facing websites and whether the use of such technologies may implicate HIPAA, FTC and/or state data breach notification laws. She represented a renowned health system on the first-ever OCR compliance inquiry related to these technologies, without precedent or the benefit of regulatory guidance.

Deborah’s clients include pharmaceutical manufacturers and medical device companies, managed care companies, dental service organizations and practice management companies, academic medical centers and community hospitals as well as private equity and venture capital companies investing in the health care and life sciences industries.

She is a member of the Ropes & Gray Women’s Forum, which promotes professional growth among female lawyers.