People

Greg Blonde Partner

Portland

Greg primarily focuses on health care/senior living finance, airport transactions and traditional municipal bond work for cities, counties and special districts.

Greg has completed conduit bond transactions for the most active healthcare borrowers in the Pacific Northwest, including Legacy Health, Oregon Health & Science University, Salem Health, Asante, Samaritan Health Services, St. Charles Health System, Columbia Memorial Hospital and PeaceHealth. He also regularly works on financings for many nonprofit senior living providers, including Pacific Retirement Services, Transforming Age, Terwilliger Plaza, Rose Villa, Mary's Woods, Dallas Retirement Village and Capital Manor, and has worked on senior living bond transactions in Oregon, Washington, California, Texas, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Florida. Greg also maintains an active traditional municipal finance practice, serving as bond counsel for public bodies and municipalities such as The Port of Portland, the City of Lake Oswego and the City of West Linn.

Since 2011, Greg has provided pro bono legal services to Iraqi refugees through the International Refugee Assistance Project.  Greg is also a past member of the Board of Directors of Youth, Rights & Justice, a nonprofit law firm that serves underprivileged children (primarily foster children) in the Portland area.

Charles C. Cardall Partner

San Francisco

He also has legal experience relating to both charter schools and the federal income tax classification of governmental and quasi-governmental entities. He has consulted on thousands of tax-exempt, build America and tax credit bond issues and has developed deep knowledge in almost every tax aspect of municipal finance. Private activity bonds for multifamily housing, solid waste, charter schools and independent schools are areas of particular focus in his practice, as are higher education, short-term and long-term working capital and the various forms of pooled financings. Chas also has advised numerous clients experiencing financial distress or bankruptcy in tax matters relating to their municipal bonds. Representative active clients include the State of California, the University of California, the Bay Area Toll Authority, and Charter School Capital.

As a legal and policy advocate, Chas represents both government and non-government clients in federal tax rulemaking matters and in IRS proceedings, including the various types of tax-exempt bond audits, voluntary compliance (VCAP) requests and requests for private letter rulings. He has successfully closed IRS examinations relating to solid waste, water and wastewater, working capital, healthcare, pooled, multifamily housing, and industrial development bond financings. He has obtained multiple private letter rulings and technical advice memoranda and has been integrally involved in numerous regulation and legislative projects. He has found that a close working relationship with IRS and Treasury Department personnel often is critical to obtaining good results for clients.

Cathleen Chang Senior Associate

Houston; Austin

In public finance matters, Cathleen has served as bond counsel and special tax counsel for a variety of transactions, including health care facilities, multifamily housing, airport, ports, transit authorities, non-profit organizations, public utilities, hospitality projects, as well as tobacco revenue securitizations. In addition to tax-exempt financings, Cathleen also represents clients in IRS audits and non-profit corporation tax matters.

Richard Chirls Partner

New York

With more than 30 years of experience, Richard is widely recognized as one of the nation’s foremost authorities, having broad experience with tax exempt financings and related transactions involving governmental and not-for-profit entities.  His skill and stature in the public finance community was recognized by the National Association of Bond Lawyers’ highest award for his career of distinguished service in public finance. 

Richard focuses on new products, including the development of new and creative financing techniques for governments, non-profits and investment bankers. He regularly works on transactions throughout the country.  However, in his home office in New York City, he leads the relationship with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, serving as counsel on well over 100 transactions over a period of more than 20 years and has headed the tax work in connection with every financing of a cultural facility relating to museums and performing arts in New York City over this same period.  Richard has worked on the tax aspects of several of the largest and most complex public private partnership (P3) transactions in recent years.  He frequently acts as special tax counsel to issuers and underwriters of municipal finance issues.

Roger Davis Partner

San Francisco

Among the attributes that contributed to his Hall of Fame selection were:

• Recognized and sought out for his ability to apply his unusually extensive and diverse experience to solve problems as they arise and develop new programs or financial structures, and for his expertise and judgment in securities laws and disclosure.
• 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.
• Having led the development of the housing and healthcare practices at Orrick, his recent focus has been on governmental transactions, all manner of non-profit corporations, public private partnerships (P3), portfolio sales, securitizations, energy and water efficiency programs, student, senior and workforce housing, pool programs, new financial structures and programs and applications of Public Finance Authority (created in Wisconsin to finance any type of project or program in any state or territory).
• Some of those new financial structures and programs have included pension obligation bonds, variable rate lease financing, and, more recently, joint powers authority ownership structure (turning private activity projects or projects not generally eligible for tax-exempt financing into tax-exempt governmental purpose bonds; for example, for middle income workforce housing), and energy and other infrastructure as a service (P3, simplifying procurement, off balance sheet).
• Responsibility for legislation crucial to the scope and operation of California public finance, including California Health Facility Financing Authority, California School Finance Authority, changes to joint power authority law that helped propel California Statewide Communities Development Authority and California Municipal Finance Authority into two of the most prolific issuers in the country, local agency refunding law, authorizations for swaps, investment agreements and other derivative products, creation of security interests, streamlining validation actions, and in several other states including Hawaii and creation of Public Finance Authority in Wisconsin.
• Chair of Orrick’s Public finance department for several decades through 2020, during which he presided over the growth of the department from one office with 12 lawyers in San Francisco to 10 offices and over 100 lawyers and paralegals around the country, consistently ranked (for more than 2 decades now) as number one bond counsel and disclosure counsel, and within the top four underwriter counsel, for bonds issued by state and local governments throughout the United States. During this period, he also held a number of other leadership positions at Orrick, including several terms on its Executive Committee and on the Management Committee of Orrick’s wholly owned subsidiary, BLX Group, LLC (providing the public finance community with a variety of non-legal services).

In addition to his selection by The Bond Buyer for its Public Finance Hall of Fame, Roger is ranked Band 1 by Chambers, and as Acritas Star Lawyer by Acritas, as Dealmaker of the Year (twice) by American Lawyer, as “best,” “super,” “most honored,” “preeminent” or “lawyer of the year” by several other publications, and declared “the Bond King” in a cover article by California Lawyer.

Marcus Deitz Partner

Houston

Marcus’ experience includes the representation of school districts, municipalities, counties, junior colleges, universities, special authorities and other political subdivisions in a variety of roles, including bond counsel, disclosure counsel and issuer’s counsel. In addition, he regularly represents underwriters and purchasers of both public and privately placed debt, regularly serving as underwriters’ counsel and bank counsel.

Complementary to his core practice, Marcus is also able to provide his clients guidance on derivative transactions and liquidity facilities, election law matters, and municipal and school law issues.

Before joining Orrick, Marcus clerked for the Colorado Court of Appeals and subsequently practiced as an associate and then a partner with several international law firms.