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 Thomson Reuters as the No. 1 bond counsel, the No. 1 disclosure counsel in the United States once again for 2018, as well as the No. 2 underwriters counsel, our team averages over 500 bond issues, accounting for more than 13% market share, each year. The Bond Buyer awarded our work with the California Health Facilities Financing Authority as the 2017 National and Healthcare Deal of the Year and our work on behalf of the Bay Area Toll Authority in its $1.9 billion bond sale as Far West 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 both Orrick clients and other entities nationwide with financial services through our unique wholly owned subsidiary, BLX Group LLC, a registered municipal advisor and investment advisor. BLX Group’s services include financial and investment advice, investment bidding, swap advice, program administration, arbitrage rebate and other post-issuance tax compliance, and ongoing disclosure compliance.

Post-Issuance Compliance

Issuers and borrowers of municipal bonds have a significant number of post-issuance compliance obligations to maintain the tax-exempt status of interest on their bonds and to comply with disclosure obligations. Orrick, our wholly owned subsidiary BLX Group, or both can help clients navigate the complex web of post-issuance compliance and enforcement issues, including arbitrage rebate, ongoing disclosure and post-issuance tax compliance.

Our Clients

Our clients include:

State and local government issuers
Private borrowers
Nonprofit corporations (health care, education, cultural, others)
For-profit energy, water, waste and other infrastructure companies
Project developers
Public private partnership participants
Native American tribes
Underwriters
Credit providers
Bank lenders
Bond investors
Investment providers
Swap/derivative product providers
Securitization participants
TOBs participants

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A Reputation for Excellence

In 2015, we were recognized by The Bond Buyer for the Deal of the Year.

We served as bond counsel to KentuckyWired Operations Company, LLC, in a groundbreaking P3 project to expand high-speed Internet availability statewide.

As noted by The Bond Buyer, the $324 million project "forged new territory in the P3 market with its unique, first-of-its-kind approach to broadband connectivity on a statewide basis, and was the first non-transportation P3 to use a tax-exempt governmental purpose bond structure that achieved full risk transfer." The first U.S. public-private partnership concession executed to fund the construction of a fiber optic network, the project was financed using a unique tax-exempt structure that was designed by our tax team.

In 2015, Thomson Reuters ranked us as the:
- No. 1 Bond Counsel – 390 issues aggregating more than $38.2 billion, with a market share of 10.1 percent
- No. 1 Disclosure Counsel – 131 transactions aggregating more than $26.3 billion, with a market share of 19.7 percent
- No. 7 Underwriter’s Counsel – 112 transactions aggregating more than $8.6 billion, with a market share of 2.3 percent
We were recognized by The Bond Buyer for the:
- Far West Deal of the Year – 2015
  We served as bond counsel to the Regents of the University of California for a $2.3 billion refunding of tax-exempt bonds, as well as a new money issue to be used for system-wide capital projects. This transaction was the largest transaction ever in the higher education sector.
- Far West Deal of the Year - 2014
  We served as bond counsel to the County of Los Angeles Redevelopment Refunding Authority during the development of the county’s program to assist successor agencies to former redevelopment agencies. The program refunded tax increment obligations to provide debt service savings to successor agencies and to increase property tax revenues available for distribution to affected taxing entities. The program was the first to use a pooled structure to combine individual successor agencies into a single refunding series. The first issue under the program was a $53 million refunding.
- Northeast Deal of the Year - 2014
  We served as underwriter’s counsel to Goldman Sachs & Co. and Barclays Capital in a precedent-setting transaction that serves as a model for municipalities dealing with critical long-term environmental infrastructure needs. The $350 million century-bonds issued by the District of Columbia Water & Sewer Authority represented the first municipal century bond issued by a water/wastewater utility in the United States. It was also the Authority’s inaugural green bond issue and the first independently certified green bond sold in the U.S. debt capital markets.