Practice Areas & Industries: Dinsmore & Shohl LLP

Practice/Industry Group Overview

Dinsmore & Shohl is a nationally-recognized, "Red Book" listed, municipal bond counsel firm, which delivers approving opinions in respect of dozens of tax-exempt financings, aggregating several hundred million dollars, every year. Additionally, our public finance attorneys represent a full range of participants in the municipal finance market, from brokerage firms to commercial and trustee banks to qualified borrowers--a category which itself covers local governments, non-profit corporations and private developers. The capital projects which our lawyers have funded include traditional public infrastructure (schools, utility systems, municipal buildings, airports), non-profit facilities (hospitals, nursing homes, college classrooms and dorms) and urban redevelopment and economic development enterprises (residential/office complexes, industrial and waste disposal/recovery facilities, professional sports venues).

When it comes to public finance, there is very little our attorneys have not seen. In order to assist our clients in building or acquiring these worthy public, or public/private, assets, Dinsmore & Shohl lawyers offer a number of particular services:
 

Services Available

PRE-TRANSACTION PLANNING
Generally, our public finance attorneys have had educational training and/or prior career experience in finance, including investment and trustee banking activities. Therefore, we are able to advise clients at the very beginning of a project's planning--getting the project on a proper course early can save significant time and money.

CRITICAL PATH
One of the key foundations to any firm's ability to deliver an approving bond opinion is to ensure all necessary legal actions have been accomplished in an orderly fashion; our lawyers script the timeline to complete the transaction, so that all parties can understand the process and know what outcomes to expect.

DOCUMENT PREPARATION
While a pundit might claim that "all municipal bond issues look alike," the reality is that consistency is indeed the beauty of bond counsel's work. Our lawyers labor over our clients' bond financing documents to ensure that a project's unique characteristics and the client's financial needs can be achieved and fulfilled, while also delivering to the marketplace a secure, ratable and customary investment product, one designed to bring the highest possible investor interest, which translates into the lowest competitive financing rate.

SECURITIES DISCLOSURE
Over the last decade, the Securities and Exchange Commission has made it clear that, certain constitutional niceties notwithstanding, the Commission believes it has the statutory authority to police the municipal securities marketplace to protect it from investor fraud. Our attorneys draft, or assist clients in drafting, full and complete official statements and other securities offering documents in order to ensure against a major securities fraud liability.

FEDERAL TAX AND ARBITRAGE COMPLIANCE
Because the Internal Revenue Service views the tax exemption granted to municipal bonds not as an intergovernmental immunity, but rather as a statutory privilege, federal tax laws and regulations have, for many years, posed a serious risk to the uneducated and inattentive bond issuer or borrower. Our attorneys are highly skilled and experienced in interpreting the federal tax and arbitrage laws related to municipal bonds and in counseling our clients on all aspects of necessary compliance.

CLOSING
When serving as bond counsel, our attorneys orchestrate all aspects and details of the closing experience, in order to ensure that no detail is overlooked and that the client comes away with a complete transcript record of the transaction--one that will support later research into the details of the financing and will shield later audit or inquiry.

POST-CLOSING
Although our work is done once funds are exchanged for the bonds and our final approving opinion is delivered, Dinsmore & Shohl remains at a client's call to answer questions, prepare ancillary documents and otherwise support the progress of the capital project. We understand that, after the fanfare of a bond closing, our client's work toward accomplishment of a project is truly just beginning, and we are available to assist in making the project a reality in any way that we can.