- Bios:
- Evelyn A. Ashley
Evelyn A. Ashley
Founding and Managing Partner
Trusted Counsel® was founded by Evelyn A. Ashley, a nationally respected corporate and technology lawyer. She is widely recognized as a uniquely strategic lawyer, with legal and business skills honed through 26 years of diverse experience.
At Trusted Counsel, Evelyn advises private company clients and individuals on matters such as executive compensation, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, venture financing and investments, technology licensing, intellectual property protection, entity structure and related issues, corporate spin-outs and international transactions. She has wide ranging experience and brings a refreshing, results focused, pragmatic approach to the practice of law.
Evelyn founded and grew Red Hot Law Group, which quickly became a noted technology law firm. She was also co-founder of Red Hot Venture Consulting, a strategic consulting firm and incubator for technology businesses.
In 2001, Evelyn Ashley did what many lawyers have never done themselves. She negotiated and closed the sale of her own business, Red Hot Law, which was acquired by Long Aldridge & Norman (now McKenna Long & Aldridge). Negotiating for her and her partners, she achieved a result unusual for almost all law firm acquisitions - a stock transaction rather than an asset sale. As a result of the sale, she was placed in the same position as so many of her clients before and after her: "Living with a Deal."
At McKenna Long & Aldridge, Evelyn served as a Partner heading the Firm's nationwide technology practice. She left McKenna Long & Aldridge at the end of 2003 to form Trusted Counsel.
Since 2005, Evelyn has organized exclusive networking events for executives and their significant others (the "eGroup"), as well as events for female business owners and executives.
She is very active in community service and professional organizations, most recently serving annually since 2005, as a member of the Executive Committee and Sponsorship Chairman for the AeA Southeast Regional Venture Capital Conference. In 2003, she served as the Chairman of CowParade Atlanta (atlanta.cowparade.net), a public art event which generated over $36M in economic impact to the City of Atlanta and raised over $250,000 for artists and charities. She was a Founding Board member of TechBridge, (www.techbridge.org) a non-profit organization working to make technology more accessible to charitable groups and presently serves on the Board of Directors of Who Ha Da-Da, Inc. a Georgia non-profit working to create a "community" that supports "outsider" folk artists in the Southeast through assistance in applying for research grants, participation in art shows and similar events, as well as group health and dental benefits (www.whohadada.org). She currently serves as Chairman of Alexander Babbage, Inc., a technology and market research firm (www.alexanderbabbage.com).
Evelyn is an active member of Vistage (formerly, The Executive Committee) where she participates in a monthly CEO roundtable with 16 other CEO’s and business owners. She is also a member of the Advisory Board for GROWE, the Georgia Roundtable of Women Entrepreneurs (www.growe.biz) and served as a judge for the 2006 Women in Technology Woman of the Year awards. She is also infinitely "quotable" most recently having a Fast Company Magazine "First Impression of the Day" quote on December 30, 2005 (http://trax.fastcompany.com/k/w/mailman/firstimpression/20051230/redhot).
Evelyn holds her B.A. from Eisenhower College in Seneca Falls, New York, and her J.D., cum laude, from Georgia State University College of Law. Contact Evelyn at 404-898-2900.