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.
