Leigh Walton Appointed Chair of Committee on Mergers and Acquisitions of the ABA Section of Business Law
Nashville, Tenn., April 13, 2009 – Attorney Leigh Walton, a Member in the law firm of Bass, Berry & Sims, has been appointed to a three year term as chair of the Committee on Mergers and Acquisitions of the American Bar Association’s Section of Business Law. The Committee is the largest of the Business Law Section, consisting of more than 3,500 M&A practitioners throughout the United States and 42 other countries.
Founded in the late 1980s, the Committee on Mergers and Acquisitions (formerly the Negotiated Acquisitions Committee) includes members from 47 states, five Canadian provinces and five continents. The Committee's primary focus is mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and related business transactions. The Committee's work addresses not only the legal substance of M&A transactions, but also the process of negotiating and documenting them. The Committee's principal activities are debating issues of current relevance to M&A practitioners, sponsoring educational programs on M&A-related topics, and publishing model agreements (with extensive commentary and ancillary documents), practice manuals and other reference works and resource materials relating to M&A transactions. The Committee’s three major meetings a year provide opportunities for deal lawyers around the world to network while sharing information regarding current trends, deal structures and financing options.
Walton co-chairs Bass, Berry & Sims’ Healthcare Practice Group and is also active in corporate and securities law matters. Her work with public companies includes securities, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate governance matters. For healthcare clients, she assists in the acquisition of hospital systems, structures hospital syndications and joint ventures and coordinates financing transactions. She led the firm's healthcare team when Bass, Berry & Sims represented HCA Inc. in its $33 billion sale to a consortium of private equity buyers in 2006.
Walton lectures annually at the ABA's National Institute on Negotiating Business Acquisitions, the Northwestern University School of Law's Securities Regulation Institute, and the ABA’s Emerging Issues in Healthcare Law and participates regularly in other seminars and programs on healthcare, corporate and securities law matters. She serves as co-chair of the Transactions Affinity Group of the American Health Lawyers Association’s Business Law and Governance Practice Group and is on the Editorial Board on the ABA’s Task Force on Acquisition of Public Companies. She regularly participates in M&A presentations at Stanford, Harvard and Columbia Law Schools.
Walton is listed in The International Who's Who of Corporate Governance Lawyers, The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers, Who's Who in American Law, Mid-South Super Lawyers, The Best Lawyers in America®, Lawdragon 500, Lawdragon 3000 Leading Lawyers in America, Lawdragon 500 Dealmakers and Chambers USA. She has also been listed in the Nashville Business Journal's Healthcare 100.
Walton received a B.A. degree, magna cum laude, from Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, and her J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School, where she was a member of Order of the Coif and the National Moot Court Team.
About the American Bar Association
With more than 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.
About Bass, Berry & Sims
With more than 230 attorneys representing numerous publicly traded companies and Fortune 500 businesses, Bass, Berry & Sims has been involved in some of the largest and most significant business transactions and litigation matters in the country. For more information, visit www.bassberry.com.
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CONTACT: Edward Bowen
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