Leigh Walton

Practice Areas

With more than 40 years of practice, Leigh Walton has advised a wide variety of public companies in the areas of corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions and securities offerings.

She led the regulatory team for the nation’s leading healthcare provider through the largest domestic leveraged buyout in history at the time. More recently she led the legal team in the spinoff of a public hospital company from a public healthcare provider.

Leigh has helped develop the national corporate governance practice at Bass, Berry & Sims. She is known for her ability to blend mergers and acquisitions, securities and regulatory law in furnishing practical advice to companies in a broad range of industries. She works with clients on:

- Mergers, acquisitions and dispositions

- Corporate finance

- Corporate governance

Leigh is a past chair of the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section Mergers & Acquisitions Committee, which has more than 5,000 members in 40 countries on five continents. Leigh is currently serving her second six-year term on the ABA’s Corporate Laws Committee, where she co-chairs the Corporate Director’s Guidebook Task Force. Leigh was elected in September 2019 to the American College of Corporate Governance Counsel, a professional and educational association of lawyers widely recognized for their achievements in corporate governance. She is one of 120 Fellows from North America and one of only a half-dozen from the South.

Career

Joined Bass, Berry & Sims in 1979. Leigh is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University Law School teaching Healthcare Mergers and Acquisitions.

Professional Memberships

American Bar Association: Corporate Laws Committee, Corporate Directors Guidebook Task Force, Co-Chair (2017-present); Mergers & Acquisitions Committee, Chair (2009-2012); Women in Mergers & Acquisitions Task Force, Co-Chair (2015-2016)

American College of Governance Counsel (2019-present)

American Health Law Association

Tennessee and Nashville Bar Associations

American Bar Foundation: Fellow (2009-present)

Personal

JD, Vanderbilt Law School (1979) - Order of the Coif

BA, Randolph-Macon Woman's College (1973) - Phi Beta Kappa

Awards