Public Finance

Trusted for More Than a Century

Our Public Finance group brings deep and diverse experience to help achieve your financing objectives.

The group is spread across the country, with more than 100 lawyers in Austin, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Orange County, Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. With a history reaching back to the financing of the Golden Gate Bridge, our team celebrated a century of innovation in public finance in 2014.

Ranked by Refinitiv as the No. 1 bond counsel, the No. 1 disclosure counsel and the No. 1 underwriters counsel in the United States for 2022, our team averages over 700 bond issues, accounting for more than a 18% market share each year. The Bond Buyer awarded our work as bond counsel to the Public Finance Authority for its $2.75 billion P3 Fargo-Moorhead Metropolitan Area Flood Risk Management Project (2022 Deal of the Year) and as bond counsel to the District of Columbia's $309 million long-term P3 agreement with Plenary Infrastructure DC, the nation's largest urban streetlight modernization project to use the public-private partnership model (Northeast Deal of the Year).

We are honored by these distinctions, most of all because they reflect the fact that so many governmental and other clients have put their trust in us, often repeatedly.

Broad Scope

We handle the full spectrum of financing matters involving state or local governmental entities. This includes municipal bonds, notes and other obligations, tax exempt or taxable, of every type anywhere in the U.S. or its territories, for public infrastructure and other capital improvement projects; public noncapital programs for deficit, cash flow, pension, unemployment insurance, workers compensation and similar financings; nonprofit health care, educational, cultural, low-income housing and other facilities; for-profit water, wastewater, energy, waste, multifamily housing and similar projects; Indian Tribal financings; IRS audits; SEC investigations, enforcement actions; secondary market repackagings (including tender option bonds); securitizations; public private partnerships; and bankruptcies and work-outs.

Distinctive Tax Expertise

We bring a deep breadth of knowledge, insight and creative yet pragmatic solutions to our tax work in the public finance arena. We have one of the largest teams of lawyers with experience in the tax aspects of municipal bonds in the United States. Our team also handles dozens of IRS audits each year.

Our diversity of experience, together with a focus on sophisticated, tax-driven transactions, gives us unmatched strength and breadth in analyzing and opining on public finance tax matters, as well as creating innovative solutions to tax-related problems.

Continuing Disclosure Expertise

Another feature that differentiates our Public Finance practice is our special expertise in public finance securities law, disclosure (Rule 10b-5), continuing disclosure (Rule 15c2-12), municipal advisor rules, SEC investigations and enforcement actions, and the intersection of securities laws and private placements (Rule 144A and Reg D), tender offers and securitizations.

Depth of Resources

As part of a full-service law firm, we can leverage resources from other practice areas, industry sectors and geographies to handle all aspects of a public transaction beyond traditional issues. Lawyers from a variety of our practice groups are an integral part of our Public Finance practice. These groups include:

Additional Services From BLX Group

In addition to our legal services, we provide municipal clients and other entities nationwide with financial services through our unique wholly owned subsidiary, BLX Group LLC, a registered municipal advisor. BLX’s services include financial advisory, sustainable finance consulting, investment bidding, swap advisory, program administration, arbitrage rebate compliance, continuing disclosure, and other post-issuance tax compliance services. BLX is also a Registered Observer of the International Capital Market Association’s Green and Social Bond Principles and an Approved Verifier with the Climate Bonds Initiative. To learn more about BLX, please visit www.blxgroup.com.