James P. Connelly is a retired partner at Foley & Lardner LLP. He served as founding chair of the firm’s Health Law Department, and was a member of the Health Care Industry Team. He advised health systems, hospitals, academic medical centers, medical clinics, physicians, health insurers, and other health care organizations on matters of strategic planning, corporate structure, affiliation and organization, financing, operations and management, technology, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic alliances, and affiliations.

Mr. Connelly has served as lead counsel and strategist in the development of the Aurora Health Care System, a nonprofit health care system with annual revenues in excess of $3 billion and serving more than two million individuals residing throughout eastern Wisconsin. Aurora is a fully integrated health system consisting of 16 hospitals, 1100 employed physicians, 4200 affiliated physicians, an extensive teaching and clinical relationship with the University of Wisconsin Medical School, an extensive home health care network, its own laboratory company, and various other owned and affiliated organizations.

Mr. Connelly has also worked extensively with significant national physicians organizations in their strategic planning matters and market positioning, including serving as general counsel to the American Medical Group Association (AMGA), and special counsel to the American Medical Association (AMA) and major multi-specialty clinics. He has had substantial experience in counseling physicians and physician organizations involved in academic medical center settings and relationships.