Karen Ashton

Keith Covington is a partner in the firm’s Birmingham, Alabama office where he practices labor and employment, immigration, and construction law. Keith counsels employers on a wide variety of topics, including labor relations, union avoidance, equal employment opportunity, OSHA compliance, disability accommodation, non-compete agreements, and issues relating to employee discipline and termination. His immigration practice includes worksite compliance and obtaining employer-based non-imm...

Jason Walters is a litigation partner in the firm's insurance group and serves as national and regional counsel for several life and health insurance companies. His practice focuses on both individual and class action litigation, with particular emphasis in the area of fraudulent sales practices and the bad faith denial of benefits for life insurance, annuities, and long term care products. Jason also has extensive experience defending insurers in litigation filed by agents and independent ma...

James has experience with both debtor and creditor representation in bankruptcy, out-of-court workouts and restructurings, and bankruptcy-related litigation. He also regularly represents commercial lenders and mortgage servicers in federal court commercial litigation. James has represented debtors in Chapter 11 bankruptcy in matters involving numerous complex issues under the bankruptcy code, including termination of employee and retiree benefits and going concern sales free and clear of clai...

J. Foster Clark is a top attorney recognized by Best Lawyers in the practice area(s) of Public Finance Law. J. Foster, who practices law in Birmingham, Alabama, has been recognized since 2005. This recognition is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey, reflecting the high esteem in which J. Foster is held by other top lawyers in the same geographic and legal practice area.

Beau Byrd has extensive experience representing developers, owners, and financial institutions in a wide variety of commercial real estate transactions, including NMTC, Senior Housing, Retail, Office, and Multi-Family. The experience Beau obtained being a law clerk to a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge and practicing as a bankruptcy attorney in the early years of his career gives him a unique advantage in dealing with commercial real estate during these challenging times. Beau is immediate past Presiden...

James R. "Jim" Sturdivant is a shareholder at Dentons Sirote in Birmingham, Alabama, where he is a member of the Litigation and Dispute Resolution practice and leads the Dentons Sirote White Collar and Government Investigations team. Jim represents and defends clients in criminal and white collar investigations and proceedings, including those brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Financial Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the United States Justice Department, the Ala...

Thomas S. Creel is a shareholder with Carr Allison and is based out of the Birmingham, Alabama office. A large portion of his practice consists of the defense of construction defect, professional liability and workers’ compensation claims. He provides litigation and consultation support on a wide range of issues within these practice areas and has successfully defended a broad spectrum of clients, including national, regional and local corporations, insurance companies, self-insured com...

Ralph Smith is special counsel in the Corporate Practice Group. He handles general corporate and business matters, international transactions, healthcare, higher education, and NCAA compliance. Prior to joining Jones Walker, Ralph spent 25 years in private law practice in Washington, DC, and Birmingham before joining the University of Alabama System in 2004 as general counsel and member of the Chancellor's Senior Policy staff. Ralph also served the university as a distinguished lecturer of la...

Stephen B. Porterfield is a shareholder in Dentons Sirote’s Birmingham, Alabama office, where he leads the Dentons Sirote Restructuring, Insolvency and Bankruptcy team and also serves as Dentons Sirote's General Counsel. Stephen handles a wide variety of commercial litigation matters that routinely arise in bankruptcy proceedings or involve other creditors' rights or creditor liability issues. He tries cases in both state and federal courts, representing creditors and trustees in insolv...

Chris is a creditor's rights attorney with extensive experience in high stakes insolvency and bankruptcy-related litigation. He routinely represents creditor clients in commercial litigation, fraudulent transfer and preference actions, contested bankruptcy matters, lender liability claims, commercial foreclosures, executions, replevin actions and prejudgment seizures. Chris has also successfully represented lender clients in numerous complex workouts and restructurings outside of court. Chris...