Lawrence B. Garcia brings to the firm nearly 35 years of experience as a practicing attorney.  Mr. Garcia’s experience encompasses the counseling and representation of clients in highly regulated business environments with a heavy concentration in providing support for healthcare providers, senior living providers, and small businesses.  Mr. Garcia’s practice activities include mergers, acquisitions, financings, commercial transactions, healthcare law, construction law, and facilitated conflict resolutions, as well as the representation of clients before regulators.  Mr. Garcia focuses his current practice on seeking to find creative and enduring solutions to the most serious problems faced by companies in the current business environment including business structuring, commercial transactions and dispute resolution.  To that end, Mr. Garcia brings his experience as a lawyer, healthcare consultant, and arbitrator/mediator to support his clients’ needs.

In his current practice, Mr. Garcia works with hospitals, health systems, federally qualified health centers, medical group practices and senior living providers in the design and implementation of “value-added” business relationships that are designed to improve the quality of clinical care provided by his clients.  He also serves as legal counsel to the California Association of Primary Care Association, the California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, Marshall Medical Center, and St. Rose Hospital.  In addition to his active legal practice, Mr. Garcia also serves as the President of Garcia Consulting Group Inc., which provides business consulting services in the areas of healthcare, long-term care, business development and education consulting.

Mr. Garcia has served as Corporate Counsel for Catholic Healthcare West (“CHW”), a major non-profit, multi-corporate healthcare system in the western United States.  CHW is the largest non-profit healthcare organization in California and operates hospitals and clinics in California, Arizona, and Nevada.  Working in this highly regulated industry, Mr. Garcia gained valuable experience in working with the many agencies which impact healthcare delivery and financing.  Mr. Garcia’s experience includes representation of clients before several regulatory agencies such as the California Department of Health Services, the California Medical Board, Medicare Provider Reimbursement Board, the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, several Regional Health System Agencies (for CONs), the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services, the Federal Trade Commission, the Internal Revenue Service, the FDA, the Cal Mortgage Program, and the California Office of Administrative Law.  In addition, Mr. Garcia had principal responsibility for the development of the CHW Antitrust Compliance Program, was a co-author of the CHW Construction Contract Model contracts, and served on the Risk Committee for the California Department of Corporations in 1994.

In the late 1990’s, Mr. Garcia served as a principal and shareholder in BDC Advisers, LLC, which is a healthcare consulting firm specializing in strategic planning, integrated delivery systems, and market transformation consulting support.  Mr. Garcia had primary responsibility for development of the highly successful “legal support services” product line for BDC Advisers, LLC. 

Mr. Garcia has also served clients in regulatory matters not directly related to the healthcare industry including local governments and land-use planning agencies, employment and labor agencies such as the EEOC and the California Fair Housing and Employment Commission, environmental regulators at both the local and state levels and the California Department of Corporations.  While in law school, Mr. Garcia clerked in the California Attorney General’s Office in the Department of Environmental law and in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco for the Honorable Joseph T. Sneed.

Mr. Garcia serves or has served on the Adjunct Faculty of Drexel University, USC, the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, and the USF College of Professional Studies.  Mr. Garcia is a frequent speaker at several professional associations.  Mr. Garcia obtained his Juris Doctorate from the UCLA School of Law and has a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from the University of California, Berkeley.  He is the former President of the California Society for Healthcare Attorneys and the Health Law Committee of the California State Bar Association.  Mr. Garcia is also the Past Chair of the Mercy Foundation, the Chair of the American Leadership Forum-Mountain Valley Chapter, and served as the General Counsel for the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce for the past 9 years.