ABOUT
Ashley Walter is a business lawyer who specializes in advising technology and life sciences companies regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) governance and compliance with CSR-related legal requirements and standards. Ashley’s practice also includes representing clients before government agencies in connection with competition and national security filings, and he has experience advising on a wide variety of corporate matters including formations, intellectual property and employment matters, venture capital financings, and mergers and acquisitions.
As chair of the CSR Governance & Compliance Practice Group of Fenwick & West, Ashley provides value to clients by bringing to bear a firm grounding in corporate social responsibility substantive issues, sector-specific knowledge, a deep familiarity with current and proposed CSR-related legal requirements, a practical understanding of technology company supply chains and significant experience in the design and implementation of responsibility management systems, such as CSR policies and standards. Ashley has assisted companies with designing and implementing tailored CSR policies and procedures that are responsive to stakeholder expectations (including those of investors and customers), industry practice, international standards and applicable law.
Ashley is a founder and past chair of the Corporate Social Responsibility Law Committee of the ABA Business Law Section and has published and lectured on CSR, including at Stanford Law School, where he has taught the course “Corporate Social Responsibility” and has served as a panelist for the Stanford Directors’ College. Clients that Ashley has previously advised with respect to CSR-related matters include prominent public companies that operate across various sectors such as Aviat Networks, Broadcom, Coherent, Mattson Technology, Netgear and Polycom.
Ashley recently served as co-editor of the ABA’s The Lawyer’s Corporate Social Responsibility Deskbook, a comprehensive resource designed to serve as a valuable practice tool for in-house and outside counsel in addressing ESG performance and risk.
While in law school, Ashley was editor-in-chief of the Stanford Journal of Law, Business and Finance. He conducted climate change research in the U.S. and Denmark under Stanford Law School professor Thomas Heller, Advisor to the Secretary-General of the United Nations’ High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing, as part of Stanford Law School’s Climate Change Workshop. He also drafted the environmental sustainability proxy voting guidelines for the Stanford Management Company as a panel member of the Stanford University Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and Licensing and submitted a business plan that was named a finalist in a Stanford University campus-wide funding competition.
Prior to joining Fenwick & West, Ashley was a corporate attorney in the Seattle office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
