Mark Barnes, Renowned Public Health Care Advocate and Harvard Senior Associate Provost, to Join Ropes & Gray
Most recently, Mr. Barnes has served at Harvard University as its senior associate provost for research and the university’s chief research compliance officer. His diverse legal background includes high policy positions at the New York State Department of Health, under Gov. Mario Cuomo, and the New York City Department of Health, under mayors David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani. He served on the National Health Care Reform Task Force in the Clinton Administration.
At Harvard, Mr. Barnes also served as the first executive director of the Harvard PEPFAR program, which, since 2004, has treated over 250,000 patients with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, Tanzania and Botswana. In the 1980s, as a faculty member at Columbia Law School, he founded the AIDS Law Clinic there, to provide legal help to people with AIDS who suffered discrimination in employment and access to health care. He has taught health care law and finance, managed care law, public health law, the law of federal grants and contracts, and the law of human research at several law schools, including Harvard, New York University, Brooklyn Law School and Cardozo Law School. Mr. Barnes will remain a member of the Harvard Law School faculty, where he teaches health care law and the law of federal funding.
At Ropes & Gray, Mr. Barnes will focus on health care and higher education clients, including pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, medical schools and universities, academic medical centers, and other research institutions. His legal, public service and advocacy work provides him with deep understanding of crucial health care concerns, not only in the U.S. market, but also in the emerging economies of Asia, Latin America and Africa.
“Mark Barnes brings a depth of experience and a perspective that will be immensely valuable to our health care, pharmaceutical, higher education and corporate clients around the world,” said Stephen Warnke, co-leader of Ropes & Gray’s health care practice. “His diverse background gives him unique insight on health care matters from a business, operational and international perspective, which is a tremendous asset in complex health care and research compliance issues. We are delighted he is returning to the firm.”
“I’m looking forward to returning to Ropes & Gray and building on the firm’s leading reputation in health care, academic medicine and higher education,” said Mr. Barnes. “Ropes & Gray’s standing as a premiere international firm and its expertise in health care, the pharmaceutical and higher education sectors, and the teamwork orientation of the firm as a whole, make Ropes & Gray the best place to serve clients in these areas. I am very happy indeed to be returning to my Ropes & Gray clients and colleagues.”
Mr. Barnes received his J.D. from Yale School of Law in 1984 and his LL.M from Columbia Law School in 1991. He has been honored with recognition in The Best Lawyers in America, Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, and Super Lawyers.