May.18.2017
Orrick congratulates our partner Mary Collins on being named to the San Francisco Business Times’ Bay Area Most Influential Women in Business list. The annual list recognizes the achievements of exceptional female leaders across a number of industries, including law, real estate, technology and finance.
Mary’s counsel has helped shape the transformation of numerous public entities across California. Over the course of her career, Mary has counseled countless local agencies on their most important matters. One such award-winning initiative is her work on California Senate Bill 222, which she drafted and helped lobby into legislation for the San Diego Unified School District, California’s second largest school district. Enacted in July 2015 by California Governor Jerry Brown, the new bill changed the rating landscape for the 1000 school and community college districts, 350+ cities and 58 counties in California, resulting in higher ratings and millions of dollars in interest cost and property tax savings for taxpayers.
As head of Orrick’s Transportation Finance Group, Mary leads a team of lawyers across the U.S. at the forefront in helping issuers establish innovative financing programs for transportation projects. One such project is the $6.5 billion financing by the Bay Area Toll Authority of the East Span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, one of the most expensive infrastructure projects in California in the last 20 years. Currently, Mary is working with Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) on a $3.5 billion regional infrastructure bond to improve BART’s 40-year-old system, which includes more than 90 miles of worn tracks, tunnels, and train control systems.