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Ashley S. Rusher

Ashley serves on the firm’s Management Committee and chairs both the Business Bankruptcy and Creditor’s Rights Practice Group and the Outside General Counsel Services Practice Group. She is an effective, results-driven advocate for her clients. Her background of more than 35 years in business bankruptcies, distressed debt workouts, problem loan recovery, real estate title litigation and commercial litigation provides her with a solid foundation of general business, accounting and legal skills. These skills and experience make Ashley the ideal resource for our business clients who seek general legal counsel on a variety of issues.

Whether assisting a business or financial institution with a distressed debt situation, or guiding a financially sound business client as acting Outside General Counsel, Ashley helps clients reach their business goals by offering pragmatic and efficient solutions.

Ashley devotes her practice to three, often interwoven, practice areas – bankruptcy and creditor’s rights, outside general counsel services, and title curative litigation. She has a regional bankruptcy practice representing financial institutions, trade creditors, parties in adversary proceedings, bankruptcy trustees, parties to leases, creditors’ committees and Chapter 11 debtors-in-possession, in the workout and restructuring of distressed debt. She is in the pool of Chapter 11 Subchapter V trustees for the Middle District of North Carolina and has served as Chapter 11 trustee. She also provides an array of creditor’s rights services to clients including problem loan recovery and asset recovery.

Her experience has made her a trusted advisor to business clients on legal matters as Outside General Counsel. Ashley provides sound legal counseling to clients from a business–centric perspective.

Ashley also represents a number of the largest title companies operating in North Carolina on title curative matters, including actions to quiet title, reformation of recorded instruments, and imposition of equitable liens.

Practice Areas

  • Business Bankruptcy and Creditors’ Rights
  • Civil Litigation
  • Commercial Lending and Financial Institution Services
  • Outside General Counsel Services

Education

  • B.A., Univ. of Kentucky, 1984
  • J.D., Univ. of Kentucky, 1987
  • Visiting Student, Wake Forest University School of Law, 1986-87

Bar Admissions

  • North Carolina, 1987
  • Georgia, 1993

Areas of Focus

  • Outside General Counsel Services
  • Problem Loan Recovery and Workout
  • Business Bankruptcy
  • Receiverships, Collections and Foreclosures
  • Lender Liability Litigation
  • Title Curative Litigation
  • Commercial Litigation

Practice Highlights

  • Provide day to day legal advice and counsel to manufacturing companies, service companies, regional certified public accounting firm, federally chartered credit unions and non-profit corporations
  • Perform due diligence and draft documents for purchase or sale of business interests or purchase or sale of assets, both in Chapter 11 and outside of bankruptcy
  • Negotiated and successfully sold estate asset for over $17,000,000 resulting in substantial dividend to unsecured creditors
  • Successfully sold estate assets for over $9,000,000 resulting in substantial dividend to unsecured creditors as Chapter 11 Trustee
  • Recovered in excess of $8,000,000 in insider transfers while acting as Special Litigation Counsel for Chapter 11 Trustee;
  • Obtained dismissal of Chapter 11 petition as a bad faith filing for secured lender with real estate loans in excess of $6,000,000;
  • Liquidated two operating hotels in receivership action for secured lender owed in excess of $11,000,000;
  • Work out of problem loan for secured lender with shopping center loans in excess of $12,000,000;
  • Restructured and reorganized six operating nursing home facilities in Chapter 11 saving 504 jobs;
  • Reorganized small closely held construction company in Chapter 11;
  • Filed involuntary bankruptcy proceedings to preserve assets for benefit of creditors

Professional & Civic Activities

  • Middle District Bankruptcy Seminars, Inc., President and Chair Board of Directors, 2012-Present
  • NCBA, Board of Governors, 2022-2025
  • NCBF, Board of Directors, 2022-2025
  • NCBA/NCBF, Audit and Finance Committee, 2022-2025
  • North Carolina Bar Association Bankruptcy Section, Chair of Section, 2016
  • North Carolina Bar Association Bankruptcy Section, Chair of CLE Committee (2006), Former Bankruptcy Council Member
  • American Bankruptcy Institute, Member
  • American Bankruptcy Institute, Southeastern Bankruptcy Workshop Advisory Board of Directors, Co-Chair of Board of Directors, 2023, 2024
  • Risk Management Association, Triad Chapter Board of Directors, Former Member
  • International Women’s Insolvency and Restructuring Confederation, Former Chair Carolinas Chapter Board of Directors
  • North Carolina Bankruptcy Practice Manual, Chapter Editor, Fifth (2003) and Sixth (2006) Editions
  • Leadership Winston-Salem, Class of 2010
  • Financial Pathways of the Piedmont, Board of Directors, Former Chair of the Board of Directors
  • Center for Home Ownership, Former Chair of the Advisory Board
  • Winston-Salem Youth Chorus, Former Chair of the Board of Directors
  • Piedmont Opera, Board of Directors

Awards & Civic Certifications

  • 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, NCBA Bankruptcy Section
  • Fellow, American College of Bankruptcy
  • AV® Preeminent™ Peer Review rated by Martindale-Hubbell
  • The Best Lawyers in America©, since 2017
  • Legal Elite, Business North Carolina Magazine, Bankruptcy, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2024, 2025
  • North Carolina Super Lawyers, since 2018
  • 2014 Women in Business Award, The Business Journal
  • Women Extraordinaire, Business Leader, 2011

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