Eugene Clark-Herrera
Partner
San Francisco
Eugene Clark-Herrera, a partner in Orrick's San Francisco office and a member of the firm's Management Committee, loves working with clients on novel legal and business issues, blending creativity, two decades of public finance legal experience and mission-oriented passion. His law practice includes serving as bond, disclosure, lender, borrower and underwriter counsel on a range of tax-exempt financing structures (public and private), for projects that include school and college district facilities, public charter school facilities, student and multi-family housing projects, museums and state and local government infrastructure.
In addition to traditional project finance, revenue, general obligation and other tax supported municipal bonds, Eugene has experience with a variety of financing structures and characteristics, including private activity bonds, structured products, securitizations, pension obligation bonds, swaps and synthetic fixed rate bonds, and various reinvestment vehicles. Early in his career, he pioneered capital markets access for California public charter schools and advised governmental issuers, foundations, advocacy groups and policy makers in the development and expansion of public charter school access to tax-advantaged financing. He has also structured innovative philanthropic investments designed to lower facilities financing costs for public charter schools across the country,
Eugene, who is Orrick's Partner In Charge of Inclusion & Belonging, serves on nonprofit organization boards, including: the Mural Music & Arts Project, an arts-based youth development organization he founded in East Palo Alto, California, to educate, inspire and empower teens through the arts; California Lawyers for the Arts, serving the creative arts community statewide; and the Flywheel Fund, an income sharing-based law school tuition assistance program. He also serves on the steering committee for the Just the Beginning Foundation's San Francisco Bay Area youth education and pre-law programs.
Prior to joining Orrick, Eugene was a public school teacher and science curriculum developer in the South Bronx and Washington Heights neighborhoods of New York City from 1993 to 1998. He is an alumni of the Teach for America Corps.
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Representative transactions include:
- San Diego Unified School District General Obligation Bonds, Election of 2008, Series B, Qualified School Construction Bonds ($38.84 million - structured the first Qualified School Construction Bonds in the country) and in 2022 structured SDUSD's largest financing in history of over $1 billion (combination new money and refunding)
- Equitable Facilities Fund in 2018 structured the first nation-wide revolving loan fund for public charter schools leveraging philanthropic contributions through tax-exempt financing to subsidize borrowing rates for schools (over $1 billion in loans saving schools over $300 million in interest cost as of Q1 2024)
- Rosemawr Management acquisition and related financing of a portfolio of 47 charter schools across 20 jurisdictions from Educational Capital Solutions, an affiliate of EPR Properties ($454 million); as well as municipal securitization of charter school bond assets in late 2023 ($500 million)
- California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank Revenue Bonds (UCSF Neurosciences Building 19A), Series 2010 ($207 million)
- Aspire Public Schools (multi-campus) Charter School Revenue Bonds, Series 2010 ($93 million) and implemented an obligated group structure for Aspire's continued growth (2015)
- California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank in 2018 combined public and private tax-exempt and taxable senior and subordinate financing sources to fund the Powerhouse Science Center, Sacramento, CA
- Concept Schools / New Plan Learning pioneered the adaption of the obligated group structure from the health care / hospital sector for multi-campus multi-state charter school management organizations.
- City of Pittsburg Water Revenue Refunding Bonds, Series 2008 ($38.8 million synthetic fixed rate bonds)
- California Statewide Communities Development Authority Student Housing Revenue Bonds (UC Irvine East Campus Apartments, Phase II), Series 2008 ($220 million)
- Bonds of the School Facilities Improvement District No. 1 of the Healdsburg Unified School District, Election of 2002, Series 2005 ($5.8 million)
