© 2014 The Texas Lawbook.
By Brooks Igo
(Feb. 17) – Norton Rose Fulbright recently announced a significant move to reestablish its public finance practice in Austin by bringing on former Texas Assistant Attorney General Stephanie Leibe as senior counsel. She was most recently chief of the public finance division.
Leibe said the working relationships she formed over her 13 years at the Attorney General’s Office with Norton Rose Fulbright’s public finance lawyers influenced her decision to join their ranks.
“They are some of the most knowledgeable and well-respected public finance attorneys in the state,” said Leibe. “The added bonus of assisting in the reestablishment of the public finance group in Austin was, quite simply, an opportunity I could not pass up.”
Leibe said the public finance division she led for almost five years receives and reviews more than 1,700 public securities annually. The legal issues that have evolved since the financial market crash in 2008 have made for challenging yet rewarding work, she said.
“Working with bond counsel and underwriter’s counsel to identify and solve potential legal issues with new financial products as they were being developed was quite a challenge,” she said.
She added that issuers and banks are having to come together to create new viable financial products because many financial products offered in 2008 either do not work or are not available today.
Transparency, she says, is the focus legally at both the state and federal level.
“State law is focusing on transparency for the taxpayers; federal law is focusing on transparency in the financial market,” she said. “Now more than ever, it is important for all parties to have competent, conscientious counsel.”
Leibe, who has also served as general counsel to the Texas Bond Review Board, expects “business as usual” from the Public Finance Division, which she says is staffed with “extremely knowledgeable and hard-working attorneys.”
“The positions taken by the division may not have been the most popular positions, but they were based on solid interpretations of law,” she said.
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