Pro bono is part of our DNA. The founding president of the Brennan Center for Justice began our group, and many of our lawyers devoted their careers to public service before joining us. The result is a practice in which we encourage our lawyers to devote themselves to the causes that matter to them, supported by the resources that a large law firm can provide. Those causes take numerous forms. We work with the National Veterans Legal Services Program to represent deserving veterans who have been deprived of the benefits they earned. We have teamed up with the New York Office of the Appellate ...

History That financing and a number of copy-cats that rapidly followed were tax-exempt and primarily driven by then legal arbitrage possibilities. Many of these transactions were structured as lease financings or as installment sales of annuities. Tax-exempt pension obligation bonds largely came to an end with the introduction of tax legislation that became part of the Tax Reform Act of 1986. However, we have continued to work on pension bonds that are tax-exempt because of special transition rules or special (non-arbitrage) situations. A new taxable version of pension obligation bonds ...

Our Revenue Bond Financing Group focuses on enterprise revenue bonds, that is, bonds payable from the revenues of an enterprise conducted by the public entity that issues the bonds. Some of the these issues overlap practice areas and, when advantageous, we bring in expertise from other Orrick practice groups, including the Public Power Finance Group, the Water and Wastewater Finance Group, the Transportation Finance Group, the Industrial Development, Pollution Control and Solid Waste Financing Group, and the Health Care Finance Group. These issues might be handled by attorneys in several ...

Since 1985, members of our Water and Wastewater Financing Group have participated in over 800 tax-exempt financings aggregating nearly $80 billion dollars. We participate in financings for a broad range of purposes such as:   Storage facilities Treatment and pre-treatment facilities Collection and distribution facilities Desalination facilities System expansion and maintenance Rate relief and debt service savings    We particularly enjoy working with clients on long term capital programs and cutting edge financing structures and the development of new credits. ...

Orrick's Transportation Finance Group lawyers are based in California, Seattle and New York and are fully experienced in financing all types of transportation facilities owned by state and local government entities. Multi-purpose financings involving transportation issues have been successfully completed for a wide variety of issuers, such as:

• California Transportation Commission
• Massachusetts Port Authority
• Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)
• Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
• Port of Oakland
• Port of San Diego

In the United States, we have developed a robust fund formation platform drawing from our market-leading Real Estate practice and experienced Fund Formation network as well as longtime relationships with fund managers and sponsors.  We offer an international team that has worked on behalf of real estate and other private equity funds targeting investments in the United States, Mexico, Peru, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Israel, Japan, China, India and Russia. Our clients include the leading international investment funds, fund sponsors, real estate advisors, developers, public ...

Our School Financing Group played a significant role in developing financing substitutes, including lease certificates of participation (COP) financing, asset transfer lease/leasebacks, Mello-Roos financing, and Education Code 39308.5 financing (using pre-Proposition 13 tax overrides for new school facilities). Innovative School Financing Solutions When Proposition 46, adopted in June 1986, restored school districts’ authority to use general obligation bonds, Orrick responded by drafting and implementing legislation and conducting seminars outlining the new procedures by which school ...

3D printing, or additive manufacturing, makes objects by joining materials layer by layer based on a digital 3D model. Many different types of 3D printing technology exist, including material extrusion, stereolithography, and selective laser sintering. The 3D printing market is growing rapidly, as is the development and refinement of new 3D printing technologies. Our Team Our lawyers Vann Pearce and Chris Higgins possess deep insight into the 3D printing industry’s intersection with intellectual property. Vann and Chris have been featured speakers at 3D printing conferences in the U.S. and ...

Since 1985, members of the Public Power Group have participated in more than 575 tax-exempt financings aggregating more than $106 billion in twenty-five U.S. states and territories, plus more than 95 taxable financings aggregating more than $55 billion for Federal power agencies and rural electric cooperatives. Orrick works with a broad range of issuer clients such as state agencies, small and large cities, districts, and joint action agencies, as well as with 9 of the 20 largest public power systems. We also work with the largest electric utility in the country (the Tennessee Valley ...

Tax Department lawyers have been involved in domestic and international transactions involving purchases and acquisitions, business combinations and divestitures, corporate restructuring such as recapitalizations, multi-tier spin-offs and split-offs and hybrid entities, and innovative transactions involving the consolidated return regulations. Orrick’s Tax Department offers services to address clients’ corporate tax needs in: Asset-based Securitizations Compensation and Option Plans Consolidated Return Regulations Corporate Restructuring Cross-border Transactions ...

Employee benefit plan assets constitute the largest pool of investment capital in the United States and worldwide. The financial future of millions is governed by complex legal restrictions designed to protect their interests. Though complex, the restrictions need not prevent benefit plans from being full-fledged participants in the world's financial markets. Seasoned legal advice is essential to successfully navigating these potentially dangerous waters. We have long advised the largest manager of benefit plan assets on ERISA fiduciary issues. We serve as outside fiduciary counsel to several ...

In conventional energy, our experience includes working with IOUs, municipal utilities, electric cooperatives and several Indian tribes. We also work with these entities and a variety of public and private developers on alternative and renewable energy projects. In many cases, we bring together our power purchase agreement-based energy practice with our emerging company equity financing practice focusing on clean energy to apply public finance tax-exempt debt financing to specific projects and programs.