Steven A. Wilcox is an American lawyer and former partner at the Boston law firm Ropes & Gray, where he advised biotechnology, medical device, and pharmaceutical companies on mergers, financings, and licensing. He is a graduate of Boston College and Boston College Law School.
Education
Wilcox studied at Boston College, a private Jesuit research university whose original 1863 charter included provisions for a law school. He earned a Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude in 1977 and was a member of the Order of the Cross and Crown, an honor society founded in 1939 for seniors in the College of Arts and Sciences who combined academic achievement with service and leadership.
He then attended Boston College Law School, which was formally established in 1929 and first held classes in the Lawyer's Building on Beacon Street in downtown Boston. The school received American Bar Association accreditation in 1932 and moved to its Newton campus in 1975. Its legal education is grounded in the university's Jesuit, Catholic tradition. Wilcox received a Juris Doctor cum laude in 1980 and was a member of the Boston College Law Review, the school's flagship student-run journal.
Career
Wilcox's legal career developed in Boston, Massachusetts, where he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1980. He became a partner at Ropes & Gray LLP, a firm founded in Boston in 1865 by John Codman Ropes and John Chipman Gray, both Harvard Law graduates. The firm developed a bankruptcy practice during the Great Depression and a labor practice during the New Deal, and by the 1960s it had grown to nearly 75 attorneys.
His practice focused on mergers and acquisitions, corporate financing transactions including public offerings and venture capital investments, and licensing and collaborations. Most of his clients worked in the biotechnology, medical device, and pharmaceutical industries, and he regularly advised companies on federal securities and corporate governance matters. His clients have included major companies such as Amgen, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, and Pfizer. He has also represented research institutions, including the Massachusetts General Hospital and Rockefeller University, in the spin-off or commercialization of their technologies.
Wilcox was a founder and former chair of the firm's life sciences practice group, which reflected the growth of the life sciences sector in the Boston area during his years as a transactional lawyer. He later became a solicitor in England and Wales in 2011. His professional profile now identifies him as a retired partner of the firm.
Membership
Wilcox has been affiliated with the American Bar Association, the national professional association of American lawyers that works on legal education and professional standards. He is also connected with the Boston Bar Association, a bar association serving lawyers in the Boston area, and the Massachusetts Bar Association, the statewide association of lawyers in Massachusetts.
He has served on the Board of Directors of Greater Boston Legal Services, a nonprofit organization founded in 1900 as the Boston Legal Aid Society by members of the private bar. It provides free civil legal assistance to low-income residents of the Boston area and merged with the Boston Legal Aid Project, a legal aid program created in the 1960s under the War on Poverty. He is also a member of the Order of the Cross and Crown, the Boston College honor society for seniors.
American Bar Association
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United States
Boston Bar Association
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United States
Massachusetts Bar Association
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United States
Member of the Board of Directors
Greater Boston Legal Services
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United States
Order of the Cross and Crown
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United States
References
Ropes & Gray biography of Steven A. Wilcox
The firm's biography of Wilcox sets out his admissions, professional and civic activities, and his practice in mergers and acquisitions and life sciences transactions.
Legal 500 profile of Steven Wilcox, Ropes & Gray LLP
A lawyer profile describing Wilcox's focus on mergers and acquisitions, corporate financing, and licensing work for biotechnology, medical device, and pharmaceutical clients at Ropes & Gray in Boston.
