Overview

Ashley Dunning is co-chair of the Pensions, Benefits & Investments Group at Nossaman, a member of the firm’s Litigation department and recently served on the Firm’s Executive Committee. She has provided fiduciary, governance and litigation counsel services to retirement systems and their boards since 1998.

Ashley currently serves as fiduciary counsel to the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Idaho (PERSI) and the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (NYSTRS), as well as fiduciary, litigation, governance and/or special projects counsel to the majority of the twenty California retirement systems governed by the County Employees Retirement Law of 1937 (CERL) to the city retirement systems in Fresno, San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles, and to the New Mexico State Investment Council. She also is general counsel to the county retirement system in Marin. She has provided fiduciary governance training, consultation, and advice to the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System Board, Fire and Police Pension Association of Colorado Board and Staff, Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association’s Board and staff, the Howard County Maryland Retirement Plans’ Committees and to the Board of the Government Employees’ Retirement System of the Virgin Islands. She provided special project counsel to the Pension Reserves Investment Management Board of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 2018. She also has provided fiduciary expert witness testimony in proceedings on behalf of the University of California Board of Regents. Collectively, the retirement systems she serves hold more than $1 trillion in trust assets.

Ashley has represented public retirement systems in litigation in numerous cases resulting in published decisions. Ashley’s most recent argument on behalf of retirement systems before the California Supreme Court resulted in a unanimous decision in Alameda County Deputy Sheriff’s Ass’n v. Alameda County Employees’ Retirement Ass’n, 9 Cal. 5th 1032 (2020) (Alameda). Alameda is a landmark decision of the Court, which decided the narrow issues presented to it determining that statutory amendments it considered were constitutional, while preserving the strength of the “vested rights doctrine” based on the California Constitution’s Contract Clause, known in public pension law as the “California Rule.”

Ashley also is currently lead counsel for public retirement systems in six cases pending in California, one that is before the Supreme Court, two of which are before the Second and Third District Courts of Appeal, respectively, and three that are in trial court proceedings. These and other cases Ashley has led have involved disputes over all aspects of the administration and governance of public pension systems, including disputes over the extent to which benefits are contractually “vested” under the Federal and California constitutions, statutory interpretation regarding the provision of public retirement benefits, alleged conflicts of interest, retirement system funding, disability retirement and public transparency rules.

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