Bill Baxley
is a partner in King & Spalding’s Corporate Practice. His primary practice areas include Mergers and Acquisitions, Joint Ventures and Corporate Governance. Mr. Baxley is a former member of the firm’s Policy Committee and has served in various other leadership roles within the firm, including as co-head of the firm’s M&A Practice.
Mr. Baxley's experience involves the full range of M&A transactions, including public and private company mergers, acquisitions and dispositions, tender offers, proxy contests, takeover defense, joint ventures, strategic investments, going private transactions and special committee representations. His practice involves a number of industries, including banking and finance, biotech, consumer products, energy, healthcare, insurance, telecom, transportation, retail and restaurants. In addition to U.S. domestic transactions, Mr. Baxley has extensive experience in successfully executing global and cross-border transactions.
As part of his focus on Corporate Governance, Mr. Baxley has been instrumental in the firm’s creation, together with Tapestry Networks, of the Lead Director Network, a group of lead directors, presiding directors and non-executive chairmen from many of America’s leading companies that meets to discuss how to improve the performance of their corporations and earn the trust of their shareholders through more effective board leadership.
Mr. Baxley has written a number of articles on a variety of corporate law subjects. Among others, he authored articles in The National Law Journal entitled “Strategic Investments in Publicly Held Companies” and “Conducting Proxy Contests.” Mr. Baxley also has written seminar outlines and given speeches on a number of corporate law topics, including the fiduciary duties of directors in acquisition transactions. Chambers USA recently selected Mr. Baxley as a leading lawyer in his practice area.
Mr. Baxley graduated, summa cum laude, from the University of Alabama in 1986. He received his J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1989 where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
