William A. Knowlton

Education

Knowlton received a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University in 1977, with a major in history and cum laude honors. Yale, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut, had begun admitting women as undergraduates in 1969, and its undergraduate program in the 1970s combined a broad liberal arts curriculum with the research resources of a large university.

He then studied at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he received a Juris Doctor in 1982. The law school, established in 1824 within the university that Thomas Jefferson founded in Charlottesville, Virginia, is one of the oldest law schools in the United States. Its legal training prepared graduates for admission to the bar in the states where they chose to practice, which Knowlton did in Massachusetts the same year.

Career

Knowlton was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1982, the same year his professional association with Ropes & Gray in Boston began. The firm was founded in 1865 by John Codman Ropes and John Chipman Gray, both Harvard Law School graduates, and by the 1960s had grown to nearly seventy-five attorneys. Its name changed several times over the following decades, and in 1961 the original name Ropes & Gray was restored.

At the firm, Knowlton practiced health care law, advising academic medical centers, community hospitals, physician groups, managed care organizations, health care investment firms, and pharmaceutical companies on business and regulatory matters. His representative clients have included Partners HealthCare System, Pfizer, and The Carlyle Group. Health care transactions among hospitals, physicians, and investors involve complex regulatory rules, which made this area of practice demanding for corporate lawyers.

His work included advising on restructurings of academic medical centers' relationships with their affiliated medical schools and universities, and advising private equity clients on the regulatory framework of health care companies they sought to acquire. In 2004 he was appointed to serve on Ropes & Gray's policy committee. Later professional profiles describe him as a retired partner of the firm.

Membership

Knowlton is a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association, the voluntary statewide organization of lawyers in Massachusetts, and of the American Health Lawyers Association, a national association of attorneys who practice health law. Both organizations connect lawyers with continuing education, professional standards, and peer exchange in their fields.

He also served as a director and clerk of the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare. The center was created in 1995 by Boston health care attorney Ken Schwartz, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer the previous year, to promote the caregiver-patient relationships that had meant so much to him. It is a national nonprofit that promotes compassionate, patient-centered care, and its Schwartz Rounds program was introduced in 1995 with its founding.

• Massachusetts Bar Association , United States

  1982 - present

• American Health Lawyers Association , United States

• Director and clerk

  Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare , United States

Connections

Knowlton is married to Deb. In March 2002 the couple adopted a daughter, Hope Qianyi Knowlton, from China.

Wife:

Deb

Daughter:

Hope Qianyi Knowlton

Adopted from China in March 2002 by Knowlton and his wife.

References

• Premier Health Care Lawyers Expert Directory Profile describing his health care practice at Ropes & Gray, his work on restructuring academic medical center relationships, and his membership in the American Health Lawyers Association.
• UVA Lawyer, Spring 2004 Class Notes Alumni class notes reporting his health care law practice, his appointment to Ropes & Gray's policy committee, and his 2002 adoption of a daughter from China with his wife.
  2004