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Health care investing is complex, and legal teams are being pulled closer to the center of it. Regulatory expectations keep shifting, technology is moving fast, and investors are increasingly drawn to firms with deep specialization. In that environment, legal teams are expected to be strategic partners more than ever before, helping organizations navigate complexity while maintaining momentum.
At Patient Square Capital (Patient Square), a dedicated health care investment firm with approximately $19 billion in assets under management, Kat Ackerman covers broad terrain. As Deputy General Counsel, her work spans fundraising, fund formation, transactions, portfolio company matters, and firmwide broad health care landscape initiatives.
Kat credits her years in private practice for helping her develop both versatility and depth. Her early years at Davis Polk, and later her time as a partner at Kirkland & Ellis, gave her exposure to a wide range of matters and clients. This experience prepared her well for Patient Square. At a complex firm, a single issue can touch a fund, a transaction, a portfolio company, an investor matter, and a firm-level process all at once. A typical day might involve working on a live transaction, addressing LP questions on fund structure, supporting a portfolio company matter, collaborating on a presentation on government policy, or working alongside the finance and capital teams on firm matters.
The scope of Kat’s remit reflects both the complexity of the business, and the increasingly strategic role legal leaders play within it. Kat says, “One of the things that drew me to Patient Square was how embedded the legal function has been since the founding of the firm. Patient Square’s General Counsel, Adam Fliss, joined as a founding partner and has set the tone within the organization for the legal department to be a collaborative partner that works closely across the whole firm.”
Leading through complexity
Patient Square invests across the health care landscape, including therapeutics, medical devices, diagnostics, life sciences tools, providers, and technology-enabled services. As policy and regulation shift, keeping up with the implications matters, because health care questions rarely sit in isolation. Choices may impact patient outcomes, operations, and regulation, so firms must consider the expectations of numerous different stakeholders when making decisions. Kat says that legal work is most useful when it stays connected to those realities rather than treating risk as an abstraction. Kat says, “I try to get involved early, understand what the team is actually trying to accomplish, and then figure out which considerations really matter to the decision.” Because her work crosses so many functions, she sometimes notices when different teams are circling the same problem, and part of what she can do is make sure the right people are talking to each other at the right time.
“Patient Square has a team with deep expertise across health care, policy, legal, and investing, which helps us proactively evaluate developments and understand their potential implications. The legal function works closely with experts across the firm, who bring deep technical knowledge and market-specific judgment to a complex and evolving industry, to monitor changes, share insights, and provide practical guidance. My role is often to support translating insights and ideas into clear legal frameworks and solutions.”
One area she’s especially energized by is artificial intelligence. Rather than treating it as a threat to careful legal work, Kat sees opportunity in it to allow the team to scale with the firm. “I’m genuinely excited about what these tools can do, especially around routine tasks and knowledge management. I think about technology as a tool to improve judgment, not replace it. In my role, it’s most useful when it enables the legal function to be more organized, consistent, and responsive.”
Asked what keeps her engaged, Kat points to the breadth of the work. “I enjoy being closer to the full picture and contributing to the process from beginning to end, rather than providing input at a specific point along the way. I like seeing the tangible impact of those decisions over time,” Kat reflects.
Cleary Gottlieb advises many of the world’s most sophisticated investment managers on complex fund formation, innovative capital solutions, and transformative transactions, bringing the legal precision and commercial insight that global markets demand. Cleary is proud to support Patient Square Capital across its health care investment ecosystem, bringing deep sector knowledge and cross-border capabilities to one of the most dynamic areas of the global economy. Working closely with Deputy General Counsel Katherine Ackerman and her team, Cleary brings intellectual agility, commercial acumen, and true partnership to its work with Patient Square Capital.
Kirkland & Ellis is proud to support our client Katherine Ackerman on this well-deserved recognition. It’s a privilege to work with Katherine and the whole team at Patient Square to meet their mission of investing in growth-oriented companies whose products and technologies improve patient lives. With a global platform of more than 4,000 lawyers in 24 cities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Kirkland is a market-leader providing elite legal advice and exceptional client service in each of its core practice areas including private equity, M&A and other complex corporate transactions, investment fund formation, restructuring, and litigation.
Ropes & Gray is proud of our longstanding relationship with Patient Square Capital and Katherine Ackerman, and we look forward to supporting their continued success.
Industry leaders like Patient Square rely on Ropes & Gray as trusted advisors to execute transformative transactions, resolve complex disputes, and drive innovation. We are recognized for delivering exceptional results in highly regulated and sophisticated matters across healthcare and life sciences, private equity, asset management, investment banking, infrastructure, technology, and consumer and retail. Our clients return time and again because of our deep industry knowledge, collaborative approach, and commitment to excellence.
