Apollo-Backed GI Alliance Names Katten Partner as Legal Chief

The GI Alliance has hired Benjamin Griffith as chief legal officer after a physician-led buyout valued the largest US gastroenterology practice at roughly $2.2 billion.

Griffith, a health care partner at Katten Muchin Rosenman, succeeds former colleague Cheryl Camin Murray, who will return Jan. 9 to Katten after serving as GI Alliance’s top in-house lawyer since mid-2021.

Griffith worked closely with GI Alliance and its physicians since the business was formed in 2018, according to a GI Alliance memo. He handled mergers and acquisitions and health care regulatory matters for the company.

In August, Apollo Global Management Inc. received two seats on GI Alliance’s board after funds managed by the private equity firm paid $785 million for a minority stake in the suburban Dallas-based practice management platform. Katten advised GI Alliance on the deal, which closed in September.

Latham & Watkins represented Apollo on the transaction, while Kirkland & Ellis was outside counsel to Waud Capital Partners LLC, a private equity firm exiting its 30% stake in the physician-controlled business. A Katten spokeswoman confirmed that GI Alliance remains a client of the firm.

Murray and Griffith didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Griffith, who started Dec. 5 at GI Alliance, spent nearly five years at Katten, where he made partner last year in the firm’s Chicago office.

He joined Katten from Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale, a St. Louis-based firm that hired Griffith after he spent more than three years in-house at nonprofit Catholic health care system SSM Health.

Katten, formed through a merger two decades ago between Chicago- and New York-based firms, has a large US health care practice.