San Francisco
Roger L. Davis has concentrated his practice on public
finance at Orrick for more than three decades. In that capacity, he has had a lead role in
more than 1,000 transactions, as bond counsel, underwriters counsel, borrower
counsel, disclosure counsel, credit provider counsel and other roles, on
virtually every type of municipal security, in roughly 20 states and
territories.
Roger is particularly known and
sought out for his ability to apply that unusually extensive and diverse
experience in figuring out how to finance projects or programs when it is not
clear whether or how that can be done, how to solve problems as they arise and how
to make new programs work. Roger is dedicated to helping bring
about projects and programs (whether sponsored by public entities, nonprofit
corporations or for-profit enterprises) that provide a public benefit and make
people’s lives better.
Roger's recent focus has been on general governmental
transactions, including pension obligation bonds, all manner of nonprofit corporations, public private partnerships
(P3s), securitizations, energy and water efficiency programs, pool programs,
and development of new products or programs.
His practice is national with concentrations in California, Hawaii and
several Pacific Islands. He was
instrumental in the creation of the Public Finance Authority in Wisconsin,
which is designed to finance projects anywhere in the United States.
Roger also advises on securities laws
and disclosure and drafts legislation (exacted in several states) to facilitate
borrowing by public entities for a wide variety of projects and programs.
In addition, Roger holds a number of
management positions at Orrick. He is co-chair of Orrick’s public finance
department, which resides in nine offices around the country, and for the last
two decades has ranked as number one bond counsel and disclosure counsel, and
within the top five underwriters counsel, for bonds issued by state and local
governments throughout the United States.
In that capacity, Roger is responsible for strategy, opinion policy and
other standards of practice for the group, and is consulted on a wide range of matters in
addition to his own.
A dozen or so of Roger’s transactions
have been selected as deals of the year by various publications. He himself has been recognized by The American Lawyer as Dealmaker of the Year (twice), as
“best”, “super” or "lawyer of the year" by several other publications, ranked by Acritas as an
Acritas Star Lawyer, and was declared the “The Bond King” in a cover article by
California Lawyer.
