Dentons partner Samuel Maizel has been selected as a Top Healthcare Lawyer in California by the Daily Journal for 2021. Resident in the Los Angeles office, Maizel leads the Firm’s financially distressed healthcare industry practice nationwide. The Top Healthcare Lawyers list honors leading California lawyers who specialize in health care litigation, transactions and counseling.

Maizel is a nationally recognized authority in healthcare restructuring, including nonprofits. Among his recent successes, Maizel was co-lead counsel in the chapter 11 bankruptcy cases of Verity Health System of California, the second largest nonprofit hospital bankruptcy in American history, with US$1.4 billion of debt. The cases included six hospitals in California and 16 related companies. The Verity cases resulted in the successful transfer of all the hospitals to new operators and payments to creditors exceeding US$800 million, all achieved over the vigorous opposition of the California Attorney General. At the same time, Maizel was also lead counsel in the chapter 11 bankruptcy cases and successful restructuring of Astria Health System, a nonprofit three-hospital system in Yakima, Washington.

Before joining Dentons, Maizel was a partner in a national bankruptcy firm, and prior to that he represented the federal government nationwide as a trial lawyer in the US Department of Justice. He has also served in the US Army's The Judge Advocate General's Corps, including service in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal. Maizel is the only lawyer in the United States ranked in both healthcare and bankruptcy by Chambers and Partners and also Best Lawyers; is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy; was recently awarded “Restructuring Lawyer of the Year” for 2020 by Global M&A Network; has, every year since 2007, been named a "Super Lawyer" in an annual region-wide peer survey, an honor bestowed on only 5% of Southern California lawyers; and was named a "Best Lawyer in America" for Healthcare in the 21st edition of Best Lawyers in America.

Active in his community, Maizel has been a member of the American Bar Association (ABA) Standing Committee on Armed Forces Law for almost a decade and served as its chair from 2017 to 2020. Additionally, he is active in the Business Law Section of the ABA, where he has chaired various section committees and subcommittees. He is very active in the California Society for Healthcare Attorneys; has served on the Board of Directors and the editorial board of California Health Law News; and is a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute’s Task Force on Veterans and Servicemembers, which works on educational issues for former and active servicemembers.