General Info:
Our firm specializes in serving as Underwriter's, Placement Agent's, Special Tax and Borrower's Special Bond Matters Counsel in tax-exempt bond financings, primarily for affordable housing. While our firm is not nearly as large as many law firms, because our practice is so specifically focused in this area, we believe we have more experience serving as counsel on these types of financings in the recent past than any other law firm in the United States. As stated in our resume, our lawyers have served in this capacity on literally thousands of these types of financings over the past two decades. In the past three years alone, we believe we have served as Underwriter's, Special Tax or Borrower's Special Bond Matters Counsel on over 350 tax-exempt multifamily housing bond financings aggregating almost $5.0 billion in principal amount. According to rankings in the American Lawyer magazine, over the past five years, our firm served as Underwriter's Counsel on almost 500 transactions and ranked third or fourth in the United States among all law firms in the number of tax-exempt bonds issues in which we served as Underwriter's Counsel. However, these rankings take into account all types of municipal bond financings. Because our firm concentrates in the area of tax-exempt housing bond financing, we believe our ranking as Underwriter's Counsel in tax-exempt multifamily housing bond transactions would be number one in the country for the past five years. In fact, we believe that we serve as Underwriter's Counsel on perhaps two to three times the number of tax-exempt multifamily housing bond financings in a given year as any other law firm in the United States Over the past five years, in addition to the above publicly offered bond issues, our firm has served as Placement Agent's Counsel or in a similar capacity in over 125 private placements of unrated, non-credit enhanced multi-family housing bonds with an aggregate principal amount of over $1.0 billion. We played a leading role in the development of one of the country's leading tax-exempt multi-family housing bond conduit structures, and we have substantial experience in the warehousing and long-term securitization of these tax-exempt assets as well. We also serve as Special Tax-exempt Bond Matters Counsel to one of the country's largest multifamily real estate investment trusts and to a number of other major owners of tax-exempt bond financed properties. As is discussed further in our resume, a valuable, unique service we offer to our Underwriter clients, where needed, is preparing or verifying the cash flow analyses required by the rating agencies for these and other fixed rate housing bond transactions. Our cash flow analyses and verifications have been accepted for years by all the major rating agencies and all of the major credit enhancement providers for housing and related bond issues. We also serve as arbitrage rebate analyst for a wide range of tax-exempt housing bond financings and also as Special Bankruptcy Counsel in certain defeasance transactions. We normally serve in these capacities on 50 to 60 or more transactions per year. With respect to Section 501 ( c ) ( 3 ) financings, we have served as Underwriter's Counsel or as Special Tax Counsel on over 40 different project financings with an aggregate dollar volume in excess of $400 million over the past three years. These include a number of pooled bond issues in which we helped to develop highly innovative structures to close the "equity gap" in these financings, such as combining variable rate tax-exempt AAA/A-1 rated senior bonds with subordinated fixed-rate tax-exempt debt involving inverse lower floater components to enhance yield and marketability. We are also very experienced in all aspects of bond financings involving various HUD programs, including Section 8 and other subsidies, FHA insurance, GNMA wraps, Section 236 decouplings, Section 202 prepayments and other HUD programs. Our lawyers have worked actively i