Maynard Nexsen’s Health Care Team Grows in North Carolina

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Adding Duke University Health System Counsel to the team

Maynard Nexsen announces the expansion of its health care practice in North Carolina with the addition of shareholder Leighton Roper. Leighton is a seasoned health care attorney with decades of experience working with boards and senior leaders to advance strategic objectives, meet legislative and regulatory challenges and opportunities, and identify and mitigate legal risk.

Leighton most recently served for nearly two decades in the Office of Counsel for Duke University and its affiliated Health System. In this role, he advised on a wide range of health care corporate, strategic transactional, regulatory, and government affairs matters.

"Leighton brings deep expertise to our team on a wide range of issues affecting our health care clients,” said Matthew Roberts, chair of Maynard Nexsen’s Health Care practice and the firm’s Regulatory Section. “His work as both in-house and outside counsel to highly complex organizations, including leading academic medical centers and health systems, gives him a unique perspective on client needs that will benefit our team and our clients immediately.”

“After talking with many wonderful friends and colleagues in the tight-knit North Carolina healthcare bar, it became clear that, for me, the Maynard Nexsen health care team was the right place to return to private practice,” Roper said. “The firm provides insightful, practical counsel on widely-varied matters integral to the strategic goals and challenges facing many complex health care organizations, and I look forward to collaborating with this talented group of trusted advisors to best serve the needs of the firm’s current and future clients.”

Prior to joining Duke University, Leighton worked for a transatlantic law firm in its Health Care, Corporate & Securities, and Data Privacy & Security groups, advising health systems, health care products and services providers, financial institutions, and other general business organizations, as well as industry trade associations and select state agencies. He began his legal career as a law clerk to The Honorable Sidney S. Eagles, Chief Judge of the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

Leighton earned his J.D. from Duke University, with undergraduate study at the University of Virginia.