Biography
David Braswell is chairman of Armstrong Teasdale. He has extensive corporate and securities law experience advising a wide range of clients from emerging businesses to Fortune 500 companies. His practice includes serving as lead counsel to corporations and their boards of directors, providing guidance on transactional and compliance issues, and helping them shape and execute their strategic plans and operational goals. Braswell served as the firm’s managing partner prior to being elected chairman.
Transactional Experience
Braswell advises both public and private companies on mergers, asset and stock acquisitions, consolidations, reorganizations, recapitalizations, securities registrations, private placements and various types of financings. In addition, he counsels clients on venture capital, private equity, and formation and other organizational matters affecting entrepreneurs, investors and emerging companies.
SEC Compliance and Investigations
Serving as lead counsel to public companies, Braswell ensures compliance with the SEC’s periodic reporting requirements, including Forms 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, proxy statements, Section 16 reports and other public filings, as well as the continuously evolving changes to SEC disclosure and reporting requirements. For issuers and underwriters, he handles public and private offerings of equity, including IPOs, secondary offerings, high yield bond transactions, leveraged finance and other debt transactions, Rule 144A offerings, and hybrid and asset-backed securities financings.
Braswell also provides compliance advice on Dodd-Frank, Sarbanes-Oxley and various other legislative initiatives enacted by the SEC and other regulatory bodies. Experienced in regulatory inquiries, he counsels reporting companies on SEC investigations and enforcement proceedings.
Corporate Governance
Braswell assists boards of directors and board committees on strategic matters, governance issues, activist shareholders, fiduciary duties and other matters. He also provides counsel on proxy contests, poison pills, hostile takeovers, forced and agreed buyouts and split-ups, internal investigations and issues arising out of majority-minority shareholder relationships.
Education
- Stanford Law School (J.D., 1995)
- Washington University in St. Louis (B.S., with honors, 1992)
Admissions
- , 1995
- , 1996
Professional Activities
- The Missouri Bar
- Illinois State Bar Association
- New York State Bar Association
- American Bar Association
- Armstrong Teasdale Executive Committee
- Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis (Former Chair, Securities Law Committee)
Charitable and Civic Involvement
- St. Louis Regional Business Council Member
- United Way of Greater St. Louis (Member, Board of Directors)
- Peak Resorts, Inc. (Former member, Board of Directors)
- St. Louis Sports Commission (Former member, Board of Directors)
- Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation-St. Louis Chapter (Former member, Board of Directors)
Accolades
- Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business, Corporate Mergers and Acquisitions (2007-present)
- Missouri/Kansas Super Lawyers® (2009-2018); Super Lawyers®, Business Edition (2011-2018)
- The Best Lawyers in America®; Corporate Governance Law, Corporate Law, Mergers and Acquisitions, Securities / Capital Markets Law and Securities Regulation (2010-present); Lawyer of the Year, Securities Regulation (2023)
- The Best Lawyers in America®; Lawyer of the Year, Corporate Governance Law (2014, 2021), Securities Regulation (2023)
- AV® Peer Review Rated, Martindale-Hubbell
- Best M&A Provider, St. Louis Small Business Monthly (2017)