Orrick NVP Medical Group and Stifel Venture Banking Reception at HLTH 2025

Josh Beser 合伙人

New York

As a partner in Orrick’s top 5 ranked Technology Companies Group, Josh Beser is the first call for high-growth company and venture investor clients. Focused on guiding startups from seed stage through late-stage financings and strategic exits, he brings the perspective of a former general counsel who has scaled e-commerce businesses from the inside. This includes helping Away, for whom he continues to serve as primary outside corporate counsel, raise over $200 million and achieve a $1.4 billion valuation.

Josh is particularly passionate about building high-growth companies in regulated environments, helping his clients synthesize a wide range of potential legal and regulatory issues to drive growth, product innovation, fundraising, expansion, and M&A, while navigating founder transitions and board dynamics.

In doing so, he draws on his Orrick colleagues' deep regulatory expertise across AI, digital health/healthtech, fintech, consumer and retail innovation, energy and infrastructure, gaming, space, life sciences and other verticals.

Josh works closely with founders, executives and boards in:

• Digital Health and Health Tech – Partnering with Orrick’s healthtech regulatory team, Josh is primary outside counsel to digital health and healthtech startups at all stages, including telehealth platforms, AI/ML in diagnostics, and care delivery innovation.
• Consumer Brands and Retail Innovation – As a former high-growth consumer brand General Counsel, Josh is uniquely positioned to understand and support high growth brands and the platforms supporting them across retail, logistics and fulfillment, such as Away, Studs, Skims, Blueland and Packsmith.
• Fintech – Partnering with Orrick’s fintech and financial advisory team, Josh is primary outside counsel to high-growth fintech companies in areas such as consumer finance and embedded payments.

Josh also regularly advises leading VCs and strategic investors active in these markets.

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“Working with Josh is different because it really feels like he has my back. I know I’m getting great, practical advice from someone who’s been there.”

— General Counsel, Late-stage consumer brand

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Operator Insight. Founder-Focused.

Before joining Orrick, Josh served as General Counsel at two high-growth, late-stage startups where he built and led legal, compliance, people and operations functions. This hands-on experience gives him a deep understanding of startup dynamics and what it takes to scale responsibly.

He has served as a key leadership voice during periods of hypergrowth, board transitions, crisis response, and internal investigations — bringing valuable market-wide perspective and judgment to fast-moving situations.

• Advised 25m Health on incubations, investments and strategic projects, including a joint venture in the consumer wellness/medical aesthetics space.
• Advised Ataraxis AI, an AI-powered personalized medicine startup, since inception, including on its Series Seed and Series A financings and commercial and regulatory matters.
• Provided product and corporate counsel to Alan Meds, a scaling telehealth company, including equity and debt financing matters.
• Provided corporate counsel to SimpliFed, a scaling digital health company focused on virtual lactation consulting and women’s health.
• Advised Cape, a privacy-first mobile carrier, on its $100 million Series C financing, as well as corporate and commercial matters.
• Advised Rochefort Asset Management in its lead investment in Divergent Technologies’ $290 million financing round. 
• Advised Misfits Market, a late-stage grocery and food logistics company, in growth equity and debt financings and M&A matters.
• Represented Studs, a late-stage piercings and jewelry brand, in growth equity and debt financings and strategic growth initiatives.
• Supported Crossbeam in its Series C financing and its merger with Reveal to build a cross-border go-to-market data platform.
• Advised Modern Treasury, a late-stage fintech, on its acquisition of Beam. 
• Represented a late-stage fintech company on its role in the largest prepaid card program in the United States, as well as corporate and financing matters.
• Represented Meadow, an education fintech, since inception, including in its Series Seed and Series A financings and commercial and regulatory matters.

Leadership & Community

Josh is active in New York’s tech and venture ecosystem as a mentor, panelist and investor. He is a frequent speaker on topics ranging from digital health innovation to scaling the legal function as a business driver.

Nick Feldman 合伙人

Los Angeles; Santa Monica

For more than a decade, Nick has guided high-growth companies from inception to exit, advising on formation, financings, mergers and acquisitions, and IPOs while serving as outside general counsel on day-to-day legal matters as they scale.

Leveraging Orrick’s sector-focused approach and legal innovation tools, Nick works with companies across a range of industries, with a focus on disruptive technologies—including fintech, Web3 and blockchain, artificial intelligence, healthcare and biotech, digital media, and consumer products. He also represents top venture capital firms investing in these sectors across equity, debt, and token financings.

Prior to joining Orrick, Nick was a senior counsel at Gunderson Dettmer.

Nick earned his J.D. from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review and received the Otto Kaus Award for Excellence in Legal Scholarship.

Before law school, he built a career as a journalist, photographer, and publicist covering music, food, and the arts. A proud Husky, he earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington.

Thora Johnson 合伙人

Washington, D.C.

Thora works with medical device, pharmaceutical, biotech and healthtech companies, helping them navigate the increasingly complex patchwork of state and federal health privacy laws. One client described her to the Legal 500 as a “very practical” advisor providing “exceptional guidance” on health information privacy and HIPAA compliance matters.

Her breadth and depth of experience enable Thora to assist clients in harnessing the power of AI and executing data-sharing arrangements, all while protecting health data. Thora is known for her practical approach to navigating evolving regulatory frameworks and for helping clients anticipate and address emerging privacy and security challenges. As a result, she spends much of her time counseling pioneering startups and high-growth companies on responsible innovation in healthcare and life sciences.

Thora has extensive experience counseling clients, including Fortune 500 companies and brick and mortar providers, on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and other state and federal health privacy and regulatory compliance regimes including:

• Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s interoperability and information blocking regulations
• Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service’s (CMS’s) interoperability and patient access regulations
• Part 2 confidentiality requirements applicable to substance abuse records
• State health information privacy laws
• State consumer privacy laws with special controls for health data
• Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA)
• Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA)
• Affordable Care Act (ACA) compliance
• Regulatory requirements of the Employer Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the Internal Revenue Code, HIPAA, and the ACA as they apply to employer health and wellness plans

Thora routinely helps companies and large employers prepare for and respond to privacy and security incidents involving health information. She also defends clients in government investigations initiated by the OCR, OIG, DOJ, FTC and state AG, among others.

Jeremy D. Sherer 合伙人

Boston

Jeremy advises clients on the full range of regulatory health care issues facing digital health stakeholders. His depth and breadth of experience enables him to help established and early-stage companies navigate a complex and ever-changing business and regulatory landscape. As one client’s CEO explained, “Jeremy is one of the best thought partners, and hands down the best legal navigator, I’ve found in the digital health space.”

His telehealth experience includes advising on compliance with state licensure requirements for physicians and non-physician practitioners, corporate practice of medicine issues, remote prescribing (including controlled substances), patient consent and Medicare, Medicaid and commercial reimbursement. He advises clients on compliance with laws against fraud and abuse, including federal and state anti-kickback and self-referral laws, as well as privacy issues arising under HIPAA and its state-level counterparts.

Jeremy has substantial experience pertaining to structuring, operationalizing and scaling “PC-MSO” arrangements across all 50 states. He also advises venture capital and private equity firms conducting regulatory diligence associated with investments in digital health and health care technology ventures, from seed stage funding to nine-figure raises.

Alexandra Wood 合伙人

Austin; 旧金山

Alex’s work encompasses a broad range of industries and corporate matters, including formations, compensation, venture capital financings, debt financings, mergers and acquisitions, tender offers, strategic transactions, IPOs and corporate governance.

Alex’s prior company-side representations include Carta, Docker, GitLab, 6Sense, Branch Metrics, LTK (fka rewardStyle), Quizlet, Niantic, Gen Digital (fka Symantec) and Streamlit, among others.

Alex also has represented leading venture capital firms and strategic investors, including GGV Capital, Menlo Ventures, GV, NEA, Insight Venture Partners, Fidelity Growth Partners, Merck Research Venture Labs, Trinity Ventures and Comcast Ventures.

Alex started her practice in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley offices of Fenwick & West LLP and another major national law firm. Prior to her career in law, Alex managed international development programs in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.