Robert Olson leads Squire Sanders’ Public & Infrastructure Finance Practice Group on the West Coast and is the senior member of its disclosure group. He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America for his public finance practice, and Squire Sanders is consistently ranked by The Bond Buyer among the top 3 to 5 bond counsel firms in the United States.

More than 35 years of Bob’s private legal practice have been devoted to tax exempt financings and advising governmental bodies and nonprofit organizations on strategic legal issues. Since 1986 he has worked on more than $25 billion of financings in California, Arizona, Colorado, Washington, Ohio, Florida and six other states. Since 1986 Bob has served as bond counsel on more than 240 tax exempt financings aggregating $13.5 billion.

As bond counsel or disclosure counsel, he has represented California and Florida, the cities of San Diego and Oakland, the city and county of San Francisco, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART), Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, Contra Costa Transportation Authority, San Joaquin County Transportation Authority, Arizona Department of Transportation, Hawaii Department of Transportation and numerous other public bodies, nonprofits and companies.

Bob has also represented national investment bankers as underwriters’ counsel on a broad range of infrastructure financings. His experience includes advising on revenue, special tax, lease and certificate of participation, and general obligation financings, as well as financings for transportation, hospital, utility, university and other infrastructure projects.

He has wide-ranging experience with direct placement of index rate bonds, master indentures, multimode variable-rate structures, and structured and pooled financing programs. He has extensive experience with master indentures include drafting more than 15 master indentures and serving as bond counsel on more than 50 financings and other transactions secured by master indentures including securing interest rate swaps, credit enhancement and liquidity facilities.

Bob has advised governmental bodies and nonprofit organizations on swaps and other derivatives and complex investment agreements. He has drafted state legislation creating new financing programs, advised governmental officials on implementing new governmental financing and loan programs, and advised officials in several states on procedures for issuance of bonds for hospitals and other private entities. He has represented public bodies in negotiating franchise and lease agreements with private parties to finance, build and operate infrastructure.

Bob held senior management positions in government for nearly six years including serving as chief counsel and chief of staff to the Ohio Attorney General for 18 months. He also was a lecturer at The Ohio State University College of Law.

A frequent speaker on tax exempt financings, Bob was co-chair of the 2006 California Public Finance Conference and co-chair of the 2007 National Healthcare Finance Conference, both sponsored by The Bond Buyer. He spoke at the 2008, 2007, 2003, 2002 and 2001 California Public Finance Conferences, all sponsored by The Bond Buyer. He was invited by the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission (CDIAC) to speak at two CDIAC statewide conferences on disclosure practices in 2011 and on “Establishing Issuer Due Diligence and Disclosure Programs” at a 2007 CDIAC conference. In 2011 he was also invited to speak at the International Municipal Lawyers Association’s teleconference on bond disclosure.

Bob was elected a Fellow of The American College of Bond Counsel, selected by his peers in 2010 and 2009 for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America for public finance, and has been named a Northern California Super Lawyer each year since 2008, a distinction honoring the top 5 percent of lawyers in California. He is co-author of a monograph on tax exempt infrastructure financing and is a member of the National Association of Bond Lawyers (NABL).

Representative Experience

• Serving as bond counsel and disclosure counsel in 2010 to San Diego on its $168 million Lease Revenue Refunding Bonds (Master Refunding Program), Series 2010. This was San Diego’s first public offering of bonds payable from its general fund done after the city settled a lengthy investigation by the SEC. The financing involved substantial efforts to update the city’s disclosure.
• Serving as tender offer counsel in 2010 to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) on its successful public tender offer for $79 million of its 2004 bonds. He also served as bond counsel to Metro on its $80 million General Revenue Refunding Bonds (Union Station Gateway Project) Series 2010A, which paid the purchase price for the 2004 bonds acquired through the tender offer.
• Advising numerous governmental issuers and nonprofits since the 2007 crisis in the financial markets on: how to restructure their auction rate and other types of variable rate debt; replacing or modifying their existing credit and liquidity facilities and interest rates swaps; direct placements of various types of index rate bonds; and many remarketings in connection with the replacements of letters of credit and liquidity facilities.
• Working on 6 direct placements of index rate bonds including serving as bond counsel in 2007 on a $450 million direct placement of index rate revenue bonds.
• Preparing new master indentures for fifteen governmental and tax exempt borrowers, and working on more than 50 financings secured by master indentures.
• Serving as bond counsel from 1991 to 2011 on all 45 of the financings by the Arizona Department of Transportation (AzDOT), with an aggregate value of $7.5 billion. These financings were done under four different credit structures: transportation sales tax bonds, highway user revenue bonds, federal grant anticipation bonds (GARVEE Bonds) and borrowings from state general fund. 
• Preparing as bond counsel to AzDOT the master resolution for three of its financing programs; state legislation modernizing all four of its financing programs; state legislation enhancing its authority to do transportation public/private partnerships; and legislation authorizing the State of Arizona transportation infrastructure bank and public and private toll road financings.
• Advising a large California joint powers authority since 2010 on which funds, which are governed by its bond indentures and by a use and operating agreement, could be used to remediate an oil release and pay related attorneys’ fees.
• Serving as underwriter’s counsel on seven California financings done between 2005 and 2010 aggregating $1.1 billion for a special governmental district to finance the replacement of a majority of its facilities. These financings included project revenue bonds and general obligation bonds, and auction rate and fix rate structures. Bob developed the plan of disclosure for the financings.