Concept build — NEXRAFT
Counsel since 1988 · Nine attorneys, one standard

When the matter is consequential, the counsel must be.

Ashford & Vale takes fewer cases than any firm of its standing, and prepares each as if it will be studied later. Some of them have been.

Request a consultation Areas of practice
38Years at the bar
9Attorneys, by design
120+Consequential matters
1Standard of preparation
Areas of practice

Four disciplines.
Practiced without hurry.

I.

Complex Commercial Litigation

Contract disputes, partnership dissolutions, and the kind of commercial disagreement that has already outlived two settlement attempts. We prepare every matter for trial; most opponents notice.

Lead: E. Ashford
II.

Estates, Trusts & Succession

Wills that hold, trusts that do what they were told, and successions that do not become the family's second tragedy. Drafted plainly enough to be understood, precisely enough to be honored.

Lead: T. Vale
III.

Corporate Counsel & Governance

Standing counsel to boards and founders — governance, disputes among principals, and the quiet letters that prevent loud ones. Retained by companies who prefer never to be newsworthy.

Lead: R. Okafor
IV.

Appellate Advocacy

Briefs written to be read twice and cited once. We accept appeals in matters we find important, occasionally in matters we simply find interesting.

By referral
The partners

Three names on the door.
All three answer the phone.

A client of this firm is never handed down the hallway. The partner who accepts your matter is the partner who argues it, and the person who calls you back is the person whose name you first heard. We consider this ordinary courtesy; our clients tell us it is not.

Portrait of Eleanor Ashford

Eleanor Ashford

Managing Partner · Litigation

Thirty years of trial work. Known for cross-examinations that read like literature and settle like verdicts.

“Prepared is a verb.”
Portrait of Thomas Vale

Thomas Vale

Partner · Estates & Trusts

Keeper of three generations of client families. Writes instruments his colleagues quietly borrow the structure of.

“A good will is an act of kindness.”
Portrait of Reina Okafor

Raymond Okafor

Partner · Corporate

Former general counsel. Board rooms relax when he sits down, which he considers the point of sitting down.

“The best dispute is the one on paper only.”
The Ashford & Vale library — walnut panelling and brass lamps
Where the briefs are written twice.The library · 4 Chancery Row
Selected results

Outcomes, plainly stated.

$21.5M

Verdict for a family manufacturing company in a partnership-dissolution trial — affirmed on appeal.

$0

Paid by our client across four years of aggressive contract claims — dismissed with prejudice.

9 days

From emergency petition to injunction protecting a founder's control of her company — later settled on her terms.

3 gen.

Of one client family whose successions have passed without a single contested instrument — which is the result.

Illustrative matters for a fictional firm. Prior results — even invented ones — do not guarantee similar outcomes.

Consultation

State the matter.
We will state our opinion.

Initial consultations are unhurried, candid, and occasionally end with our recommending another firm. When we accept a matter, you will know precisely why.

Chambers4 Chancery Row, Suite 900
HoursMon — Fri · 8:30 – 6:00
Enquiriescounsel@ashfordvale.example
Request for Consultation