Corporate attorney · Denver
Deal documentation, written for the operator who has to live with it.
Walter Allison practices corporate law in Denver: mergers and acquisitions, private equity, venture capital financings, and the formation and counseling work that surrounds them.
3
Denver firms since 2021
10+ yrs
In Colorado
Magna
Michigan Law, 2021
M&A · PE · VC
Corporate practice
Practice
Three lanes of corporate work
Most matters fall into one of these three buckets. The threads that run through all of them are documentation that survives close and counsel that respects the operators downstream of the signature page.
Mergers & acquisitions
Stock and asset deals, domestic and cross-border. Diligence through definitive agreements, closing, and the indemnification work that lives past the binder.
Private equity
Platforms and add-ons for sponsor clients. Sell-side for founders and management teams exiting to PE. Rollover and post-close governance.
Venture capital
Priced rounds, SAFEs, convertible notes. Both company- and investor-side, heaviest in the seed-to-Series-C window where the docs still matter.
About
Operator before lawyer
Before Arnold & Porter, Walter practiced at Bartlit Beck and Cooley. Before law school, he was an operations analyst at DaVita in Denver and an infantry officer at Fort Carson. He went to the University of Michigan Law School, where he was a senior editor of the Michigan Law Review and graduated magna cum laude and Order of the Coif.
Writing
Recent essays
Public-record and public-filing commentary on M&A, private equity, and venture capital structure.
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The operator test for deal terms
A deal term is only as good as the operator who has to live with it. A practical lens for reading M&A and PE documentation.
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Cayman vehicles in middle-market PE, when they earn their keep
U.S. sponsors do not need a Cayman parallel fund for every deal. Here is when the structure actually pays for itself and when it is just paperwork.
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Side letters in venture funds, in plain English
A side letter is whatever the LPA does not give you. Reading them well is half the job of LP counsel and most of the job of a fund admin.
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The BVI Business Company as a corporate holdco
Why the BVI Business Company still shows up in cross-border deal structures and what U.S. counsel should know before drafting around it.
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Earnouts that survive contact with the operator
Most earnouts pay zero. Here is how to draft the ones that pay what they should and how to spot the ones that will not.
Where Walter works
Front Range corporate practice anchored in Denver — with Boulder, Fort Collins, and Colorado Springs deal communities one short trip away. Arnold & Porter’s national platform handles the cross-border and out-of-state work that doesn’t fit in a state map.
How to reach him
Email: walter.allison@arnoldporter.com
Phone: +1 303.863.2362 (Arnold & Porter, Denver)
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/walter-allison