Kirstin B. Ives is a founding partner of Falkenberg Ives and a member of the firm's commercial litigation, healthcare litigation, and professional liability practices. She is chair of the firm’s healthcare litigation practice and has been named a 2023 Illinois Super Lawyer and Chicago Daily Law Bulletin Leading Lawyer. Ms. Ives is also an American Arbitration Association arbitrator and serves on the Healthcare, Commercial, and Consumer panels.
Ms. Ives focuses on commercial, healthcare, reinsurance, and professional liability litigation and arbitration and represents clients across various industries. She has a proven track record of being able to achieve great results in a cost-effective manner that makes sense for each particular client's circumstances. In addition, she regularly consults with clients on risk-management best practices to help avoid future litigation.
Ms. Ives represents health plans, managed care organizations, payers, pharmacy benefit managers, pharmacies, and other healthcare-related entities in litigation and arbitration. Ms. Ives' healthcare litigation experience includes matters involving member claims, ERISA, Medicare preemption, Medicare fraud, payer-provider disputes, provider fraud detection, breach of contract claims, internal investigations, reinsurance, product liability, bad faith litigation, and appeals.
Ms. Ives also regularly assists healthcare clients with responding to third-party subpoenas and government information requests from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Office of Inspector General (Department of Health and Human Services), Department of Labor, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, state law enforcement, and state departments of insurance. In addition to issue-spotting and preparing responses to these information requests, Ms. Ives assists her clients in complying with the requirements of state and federal healthcare laws and regulations, as well as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). She has extensive experience working with and supporting payer Special Investigations Units.
Ms. Ives has substantial experience representing accounting firms and law firms in professional liability and commercial disputes. She has represented several of the largest accounting firms in Chicago, as well as accountants insured by two of the largest insurers of accountants. In the past several years, Ms. Ives has helped secure significant victories for accountant clients that have helped shape the course of the laws governing accountants in Illinois.
Ms. Ives also represents Fortune 500 companies in commercial litigation of all varieties, including breach of contract, consumer fraud, product liability, class action, anti-trust, and fraud actions.
As an arbitrator, Ms. Ives regularly serves on commercial, healthcare, and consumer cases as both sole arbitrator and member of three-arbitrator panels. These cases have included disputes between telecommunications companies and consumers, leasing and purchase disputes involving car dealerships, breach of contract disputes involving financial services companies, retail customer disputes, business contract disputes, partnership and LLC dissolution disputes, collection disputes between business, and payment disputes.
Ms. Ives began her career with the Washington, D.C. office of O'Melveny & Myers LLP. While in Washington, D.C., she represented pharmaceutical and welding rod manufacturers in high-profile, nationwide commercial multidistrict litigation and class action matters.
She is admitted to practice law in both Illinois and Wisconsin and regularly litigates commercial cases in the Illinois and Wisconsin state and federal courts, as well as nationwide.
Education/Bar Admissions
Ms. Ives received a B.B.A. in accountancy, magna cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame, Mendoza College of Business Administration, where she was a member of Beta Alpha Psi accounting honor society. She received her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.
Ms. Ives is a member of the state bars of both Illinois and Wisconsin. She is also admitted to practice before the U.S. District Courts for the Northern District of Illinois, the Central District of Illinois, and the Eastern District of Wisconsin, as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh and Eleventh Circuits.
Professional Activities
Ms. Ives is active in various professional organizations, including:
- American Arbitration Association
- American Health Lawyers Association
- Illinois Association of Healthcare Attorneys
- Coalition of Women's Initiatives in Law - Board member
- Women Owned Law
- Women’s Bar Association of Illinois
- National Association of Women Lawyers
Publications and Speaking Engagements
- Navigating Payer-Provider Litigation in the 2020 Landscape, American Health Lawyers Association Webinar, October 2020
- Town Hall on New Developments in the Managed Care Industry, ACI Managed Care Disputes and Litigation Conference, May 2019
- Hot Topics in Healthcare Fraud and Best Practices for Partnering with Law Enforcement To Combat Fraud, Waste, and Abuse, Blue Cross and Blue Shield 2019 National Summit, May 2019
- The Opioid Crisis: Creating Opportunity and Managing Risk, American Health Lawyers Association Institute for Health Plan Counsel, November 2018
- Deep Dive on Medicare Exhaustion and Preemption, American Health Lawyers Association Webinar, October 2018
- Managed Care Fraud in Medicare and Medicaid - 2018, American Health Lawyers Association Annual Meeting, June 2018
- Collaborative Opioid Crisis Strategy Session: A Discussion of Best Practices to Help You Prepare for Upcoming Challenges, ACI Managed Care Disputes and Litigation Conference, May 2018
- Hot Topics in Healthcare Fraud and Best Practices for Partnering with Law Enforcement To Combat Fraud, Waste, and Abuse, Blue Cross Blue Shield 2018 National Summit, May 2018
- Mandatory Initial Discovery Pilot Program Overview, CVS Health legal department, July 2017
- Managed Care Fraud in Medicare and Medicaid, American Health Lawyers Annual Meeting, June 2017
- Hot Trends in Payers, Plans, and Managed Care Litigation, Illinois Association of Healthcare Attorneys Annual Summit, November 2016
- CMS Announces Second Phase of Value-Based Insurance Design Model and Seeks New Medicare Advantage Plan Applicants for 2018, AHLA Payors, Plans, and Managed Care E-Alert, October 2016
- Technical Defenses to Auditor Malpractice Claims, CNA, September 2016.
- Intercompany Pricing in the Age of Integrated Healthcare, American Health Lawyers Annual Meeting, June 2016
- 340B Drug Pricing Program: Overview and Recent Developments, First Illinois HFMA Fall Summit, October 2015