Laurie B. Ashton

Laurie Ashton is Of Counsel to Keller Rohrback. Prior to becoming Of Counsel, she was a partner in the Arizona affiliate of Keller Rohrback. Early in her career, as an adjunct professor, she taught semester courses in Lawyering Theory and Practice and Advanced Business Reorganizations. She also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Charles G. Case, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, for the District of Arizona for two years.

An important part of Laurie’s international work involves the domestic and international legal implications of treaty obligations and breaches. She is a member of the international legal team that represented the Marshall Islands at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. For its work, the team was nominated by the International Peace Bureau for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize, along with the former Foreign Minister, Tony deBrum. Laurie was also part of the team representing parties impacted by the Trump administration’s Muslim travel ban and policies related to it. That work included claims arising out of the United States’ failure to reunite refugee families as legally required.

In complex litigation, Laurie was the lead attorney for Keller Rohrback in a series of successful groundwater contamination suits brought in 1996 against multiple international defendants concerning chemical releases spanning over 60 years. She was also the lead attorney for Keller Rohrback in an ERISA class action suit on behalf of over 21,000 employees who lost a material percentage of their retirement assets at the hands of corporate fiduciaries-a case that was, at its time, amongst the largest of its kind. Laurie has led or been a member of the team leading numerous high-profile business reorganizations, including a case in which the Court confirmed a reorganization plan over the objection of the international life insurance company’s feasibility expert, based on Laurie’s cross examination.

Laurie served on the Ethics Committee of the State Bar of Arizona for six years. She was the coauthor of a textbook on limited liability companies and partnerships, published by West, and she is AV Preeminent rated by Martindale.

Laurie is frequently interviewed and has been cited by Reuters, Newsweek, Fox News, Huffington Post, Slate Magazine, Radio New Zealand, Radio Australia, and others. She currently serves as a Director of the Santa Barbara City College Foundation, a member of the Human Rights Watch Council in Santa Barbara, and as an Advisor of the Global Justice Center in New York, which advances human rights pursuant to various international laws, including the Geneva and Genocide Conventions, as well as customary international law.

Articles & Presentations

Speaker, Approaches for Advancing the Rule of Law and Morality as Concerns Nuclear Weapons, New York State Bar Ass’n Seminar (2022), transcribed and published in Fordham International Law Journal, Vol. 45 at 173 (2022).

Speaker, Legal Obligations for Nuclear Disarmament, Humanity House, The Hague, (March 2016).

Speaker, Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, United Nations (2015); Panel, Marshall Islands Nuclear Zero Lawsuit, United Nations (2015).

Co-Author, Arizona Legal Forms: Limited Liability Companies and Partnerships (1996-2004).

Guest Lecturer, Stanford Law School (2003).

Guest Lecturer, Harvard Law School (1997, 1999, 2001-2002).

Speaker, Forward into Light, the Barbarization of the Sky, Bertha Von-Suttner Master Class, The Peace Palace, The Hague.

Author of Case Note, Arizona Mortgage and Deed of Trust Anti-Deficiency Statutes: The Underlying Obligation on a Note Secured by Residential Real Property After Baker v. Gardner, 21 Ariz. St. L.J. 465, 470 (1989).