Reed Groethe is a partner with Foley & Lardner LLP who provides legal services to the public finance industry. He is a member of the Public Finance Services and the Finance & Financial Institutions Practices. He works with bond issuers and other public finance industry participants and has served as bond counsel for the State of Wisconsin for over 25 years. Mr. Groethe has helped to develop and complete many innovative financing transactions and programs. Some recent examples include the following: · The Bond Buyer's 2004 Midwest Deal of the Year: the State of Wisconsin's first annual appropriation obligations (issued to fund its pension and sick-leave liabilities) · The State of Wisconsin's first special-fund revenue obligations (issued to fund environmental remediation grants) · A cash-flow management program for Wisconsin school districts · A billion-dollar borrowing for the State of Louisiana's "last resort" property insurer to pay claims resulting from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita As counsel for the State of Wisconsin, Mr. Groethe helped prepare legislation authorizing public financing of a major-league baseball stadium and, in particular, counseled on constitutional issues. The constitutionality of the enacted legislation was promptly challenged - and ultimately upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The court includes this case as one of 25 on its list of "Famous Cases of the Supreme Court". Mr. Groethe established and manages the law firm's arbitrage rebate tax compliance service, which operates under the service name Arbitrage Rebate Company and has grown to become a national leader for that type of tax compliance service. Mr. Groethe graduated, with highest honors, from St. Olaf College in 1974, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1977, he received his J.D. degree from the University of Chicago, where he served as executive editor of the University of Chicago Law Review. Mr. Groethe joined Foley after a one-year clerkship with a federal appellate judge. Mr. Groethe is a Fellow in the American College of Bond Counsel, which was formed for the purpose of recognizing lawyers who have established reputations among their peers for skill, experience, and high standards of professional and ethical conduct in the practice of bond law. Mr. Groethe has been Peer Review Rated as AV® Preeminent™, the highest performance rating in Martindale-Hubbell's peer review rating system and was selected by his peers to be included in the current edition of The Best Lawyers in America® in the specialty of Public Finance Law. Mr. Groethe is a member of the American Bar Association's Section of Taxation and the National Association of Bond Lawyers. |