© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.
By Brooks Igo
(June 10) – In the wave of new litigation boutiques popping up and national law firms invading, Michael Byrd and Brad Adatto believe they have found a unique slice of the market.
The two former SettlePou lawyers left the 30-lawyer full-service law firm in February to set out on their own and establish ByrdAdatto, a five-person boutique with expertise in health care and business matters.
“We started our own firm because we have something unique,” Byrd, who served on SettlePou’s board of directors, said.
Both sons of doctors who owned their own private medical practices, Byrd and Adatto grew up around medicine and business. Some of Byrd’s first clients out of law school were his father’s doctor friends.
Adatto began working with Byrd in 2006 after he and his family were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. At SettlePou, they built a health care practice that went from 40 percent of their portfolio to 75 percent.
Part of this growth in representing clients in the health care sector is due in large part to referrals. Byrd and Adatto have become the “go-to” guys for many M&A lawyers at big firms that represent hospitals because these lawyers can get conflicted out of representing the individual doctors and dentists at the hospitals in separate matters.
As a result, the ByrdAdatto team is representing hundreds of individual doctors and dentists in creating and planning new businesses, buying and selling practices and related health care businesses, maintaining regulatory compliance, addressing peer review issues and navigating business disputes.
“We are business lawyers first,” Adatto said. “A regulatory lawyer might analyze an issue, but end up saying ‘No’ to a deal. Our job is to find a way to say ‘Yes’.”
One of the more significant trends Byrd and Adatto are observing in the health care space is an increasing number of doctors trying to find a way to merge or form a joint venture with other doctors as a result of the complex regulatory and reimbursement landscape.
One of the firm’s clients is Rich Ha, the president of Dallas Plastic Surgery Institute. Byrd started representing him 15 years ago when he joined a group of six surgeons.
Today, Dallas Plastic Surgery has 12 surgeons and four offices in North Texas. It is opening its fifth in Southlake next year. Ha notes it is hard to grow in the health care industry without quality legal representation due to the tighter regulatory climate.
“There wasn’t even a consideration that we wouldn’t stick with them when they moved,” he said. “They do quality work and are hard-working, honest guys.”
In fact, 100 percent of Byrd and Adatto’s clients from SettlePou have kept their business with them.
The firm also handles business matters for clients outside of the health care sector and beyond Texas. They currently represent clients in 35 different states.
Les Kreis, principal at Fort Worth-based private equity firm Steelhead Capital Management, has gone to Adatto for corporate transactional expertise since 2008. He says he can talk to him “as if he is one of my business partners.”
Byrd and Adatto are joined by three other SettlePou alumni: James Stanford, Jay Reyero and Evie Lalangas. Byrd says each person owns a special expertise.
Stanford focuses on dental M&A work, Reyero is a “HIPAA guru” and Lalangas holds a Masters of Public Health.
You can learn more about the firm at www.byrdadatto.com.
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