Washington office of Dinsmore & Shohl lands housing finance attorney

Multifamily housing bond specialist R. Wade Norris is coming onboard as a partner at the Washington, D.C., office of Dinsmore & Shohl LLP, where he will add his skills and nearly 50 years of experience in developing innovative ways to finance affordable housing communities. 

“We interact with, and rely on, bond counsel for a lot of the substantive legal analysis that goes into the structuring of the deals,” said Norris. 

“When we’re developing new structures with our underwriter clients, we often encounter federal tax law issues and having colleagues that we can call on when we’re developing these new structures is a huge asset for the clients we serve.”

Norris is a highly regarded authority in multifamily housing bond finance who’s helped seal the deal on thousands of transactions totaling billions of dollars across all 50 states.

His wealth of expertise promises to be a good fit for Dinsmore & Shohl, a nationwide firm with 30 offices in 13 states and over 750 attorneys on staff.

“Wade is widely recognized as one of the country’s leading professionals in multifamily finance,” said Dinsmore’s public finance practice group chair Lewis Diaz.

“His vast experience will immediately bring value to the financial institutions that Dinsmore serves.”

Norris is ending a nearly ten-year stint as a managing member of a boutique firm he helped found.  

He played a major role in creating HUD’s 11(b) refunding program, served as private consultant on bond refunding policy, and advised on the disposition of HUD’s multifamily mortgage portfolio. 

Norris was one of the principal architects in the creation of the country’s leading bank private multifamily private placement programs, the Freddie Mac multifamily Tax-Exempt Loan structure.

He also pioneered Fannie Mae’s M.TEBs  structure along with other leading multifamily tax-exempt debt financing structures.

All that multifamily experience should come in handy as provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act loosened restrictions on Low Income Housing Tax Credits which are expected to boost affordable housing development and the use of private activity bonds. 

Dinsmore is also ramping up its LIHTC expertise in its public finance sector in the Denver office by hiring Reginald “Reggie” Norris, the son of Wade Norris.

Public financial analysts Melissa Harvison and Quinn Bero are also coming onboard. 

The team has deep experience in the 4% LIHTCs program that relies on PABs.

Their work includes navigating complex federal tax regulations, coordinating with underwriters and bond counsel and crafting innovative structures that align with evolving market and regulatory conditions.

“There’s no secret that that there is an affordable housing crisis in the United States,” said Norris. “We’ve always taken great satisfaction from the fact that we know what our clients and we are doing in these financings is addressing and providing a critical social need.”

Norris graduated with a B.A. in Economics from Duke University, an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a J.D. from Duke University School of Law.

He’s a member of the American Bar Association, National Association of Bond Lawyers and American College of Bond Counsel.