John Carroll The former leader of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP's healthcare antitrust team is returning to King & Spalding LLP, a firm where he worked for more than a decade, helping clients through deal reviews by the Federal Trade Commission, an agency where he once worked as an attorney.

John Carroll has rejoined King & Spalding's antitrust practice in Washington, D.C., as a partner, where he'll continue his practice focused on merger and acquisition work, strategic counseling and compliance, and with global cartel investigations, the firm said.

Carroll's practice includes counseling clients through FTC deals and investigations, an agency where he previously worked in its Bureau of Competition. There, Carroll investigated, challenged and negotiated settlements in potentially anticompetitive business combinations, the firm said.

King & Spalding said that Carroll's work also includes guiding clients through Hart-Scott-Rodino Act clearance, with "second request" merger investigations, and with State Attorneys General reviews.

Attorneys with expertise working with state attorneys general are a continued area of investment for firms, which have been expanding their benches of practitioners in that area since 2020. It's an area of work that's picked up as the federal government pulls back enforcement in some areas, and state attorneys general step in to fill the gap.

Firms like Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP have launched state attorneys general practices this year. Hogan Lovells' practice, which launched in 2023, announced shaking up their firm's AG practice leadership in May.

In an interview with Law360 Pulse on Tuesday, Carrol said that working with state attorneys general reviews continues to be a focus for healthcare transactions.

For example, as part of the strategy of the healthcare antitrust team he led in his previous role, that group "developed and implemented a matrix of state AG healthcare transaction approvals."

"There are now many states that require approvals for transactions that are relatively small, so ones that don't rise to the level, right, of federal [Hart-Scott-Rodino], but that still require notification and could have substantial waiting periods," Carroll said.

Those investigations aren't, "entirely along ideological or political lines," Carroll said.

"So, Washington, Oregon, California, those states have some things in common, but Indiana has its own merger control regime that can slow down deals," Carroll said. "So, yes, absolutely, for healthcare transactions in particular, that's going to continue to be a core focus of our practice here at K&S."

Carroll said he wanted to return to the firm for the opportunity to continue to grow King & Spalding's antitrust practice, "particularly the transitional platform across segments, as well as healthcare."

"It was an opportunity to come back to work with some fantastic colleagues in the antitrust group, in the corporate group and in special matters and other groups across the firm, and I'm really excited to be back," he said.

He added: "There's a lot going on here, which is not surprising seeing the growth of the firm, ... the D.C. office has grown in size, substantially."

King & Spalding has added a number of attorneys in D.C. in recent months, including another "boomerang," or returning lawyer, Matt Hanson — who rejoined the firm's D.C. office in June after working in the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legislative Affairs.

The firm also hired in June, an attorney who has spent his entire career with the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and who worked most recently as its chief counsel.

In July, King & Spalding hired Matthew D. McGill, the former co-leader of two of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP's practices, in D.C., and David Hoskins, the former deputy associate general counsel for litigation in the general counsel's office at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Keith Townsend, co-leader of King & Spalding's corporate practice group, said in a statement that Carroll is well known at the firm "as a partner who is ambitious, energetic and entrepreneurial and will be a 'first call' antitrust advisor for clients undergoing strategic transactions."

"John has a demonstrated track record of collaboration and client service excellence and a strong industry reputation that will be critical as we continue to build our destination antitrust practice for sophisticated clients across multiple industries," Townsend said.

A George Washington University Law School graduate, Carroll worked with the FTC for a little more than three years, then joined Ropes & Gray LLP, where he spent another three years. He joined King & Spalding for the first time in 2011, as an associate, and later made partner in 2018. He joined Sheppard Mullin in 2021.