Partner
and access,
Brian O’Fahey is a recognized corporate and securities transactional and advisory lawyer, with a particular expertise on recent securities law and ESG-related developments and emerging issues. Brian works closely with in-house legal and finance departments, C-suite executives, and boards of directors, helping them execute their optimal value generating strategies and using law as a tool to achieve their business goals. His diverse transactional practice ranges from leading equity and debt public offerings and private placements to negotiating public company acquisitions, divestitures, and other strategic transactions. He regularly counsels boards and committees on corporate governance and public company reporting issues, fiduciary duties matters, executive compensation arrangements, and listing exchange matters. As U.S. lead on our global ESG Core Team, he helps coordinate the firm’s global climate reporting practice, advising clients on the integration of global mandatory and voluntary reporting regimes, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and State of California’s respective climate reporting rules, the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, standards being set by IFRS’s International Sustainability Standards Board, and institutional investor and proxy advisory firm policies. Brian’s insights into ESG-related topics have been quoted in Reuters, the National Law Journal, Bloomberg, Financial Times and CSO Futures, and he has served as a panelist at the Society for Corporate Governance’s National Conference and at OutQUORUM’s Annual Summit. He is a Lecturer at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he co-teaches a course on corporate governance. Having previously worked at a U.S. Attorney's Office, as well as defending clients in criminal proceedings as a student attorney, Brian also works seamlessly with white collar group colleagues, including on matters related to the potential or actual restatement of financial statements.
