NABL’s incoming president aims to boost membership amid ‘silver tsunami’

Matthias Edrich is approaching his one-year term as The National Association of Bond Lawyers’ president with a few goals in mind, including growing NABL’s membership to ensure the organization remains strong despite a wave of attorney retirements.

“We’ve had a period of retirement and there’s been a silver tsunami,” Edrich, a 44-year-old Kutak Rock tax partner whose term as NABL president begins Sept. 10, said in a recent interview. “People who are nearing the end of their careers are retiring.” 

In the public finance area, compounding the overall Baby Boomer lawyer retirement wave is a period of time around 1986 where law firms weren’t hiring new public finance attorneys – or at least not at the same rate – as work slowed, he said. 

“And that created a gap that we’re really feeling now,” Edrich said, adding that attorneys who were doing public finance work before 1986, which was when the Tax Reform Act of 1986 was adopted, are now retirement age. 

Consequently, “there’s several years’ gap – 10 years’ gap or so” between the public finance attorneys who were working prior to 1986 and those hired much later. 

“And so the goal for my year – and the goal I think for previous years has been to integrate these new attorneys into NABL, making sure that they hear from the outgoing attorneys about the benefits of NABL and get involved despite having this gap of somewhat more senior attorneys who could otherwise help them along the way,” Edrich said. 

In addition to ensuring that new members come into the organization, NABL’s incoming president also wants to make sure that members who are nearing the end of their careers feel encouraged to share their experiences about working in public finance so that their acquired knowledge can be passed on to new people.

“And I think an association is the best way to do that,” he said. “Sure, some of the retiring partners are going to talk with their own associates at their own firms, but a much more effective way for the entire industry is to have an association like we have.” 

Edrich has been a NABL member for the 18 years that he’s practiced public finance law, he said. In an article Kutak Rock posted to its website announcing his selection as NABL’s president, Edrich called NABL the “single most impactful organization” in terms of his career development. 

“When laws change and new guidance comes out, NABL was there to help me talk with others and process those developments in a way that I don’t think I would ever have been able to do without NABL,” he said. 

Based out of Kutak Rock’s Denver office, Edrich splits his time between Colorado and Ohio. He focuses his practice on U.S. tax law aspects of financial instruments, with an emphasis on state and local tax-exempt and taxable bonds as well as certain corporate bonds. 

Born in Denver and raised in Germany, he returned to the U.S. for college following a path blazed by his older siblings. Edrich “really enjoyed finance, technical things,” he said, adding that he worked for a large technology company during college. 

 “The law is similar to technical programming, very rules-based, and that all appeals to me, the way to use the law and tax to put together puzzles that our clients bring to us,” Edrich said, adding that working on tax-related aspects of projects for municipalities “is really a huge puzzle game that spoke to me.” 

After receiving his undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado Boulder, Edrich attended the University of Denver, where he earned his MBA and J.D. degrees in 2007 and a Tax LLM in 2013. 

Edrich’s introduction to NABL, which was incorporated as an Illinois nonprofit corporation in February 1979, came via the public finance law firm he joined after graduating from law school in 2007.

“I had very committed colleagues at my first firm, Peck, Shaffer & Williams, who said I need to attend the conferences, I need to be a member from the very beginning,” he said. “They were really the ones who helped me get into it.” 

While Edrich hopes to focus on his goals of ensuring NABL’s continued resiliency, growing its membership and fostering knowledge transfer to newer members, he acknowledged that circumstances can sometimes require a change in course. 

“As with any association, who knows what happens in government where an association like ours needs to pivot and focus its attention on whatever is coming up,” he said. “So the best-laid plans may not turn out the way they are expected, but those are the goals I think for this coming year. 

There is, however, something Edrich seems quite certain about.

“I feel strongly that every attorney who touches public finance should have the same opportunities to be involved in this organization because it really benefits them,” he said.