Roger Davis

Roger Davis, a member of the inaugural class of The Bond Buyer Hall of Fame of municipal finance, considers himself semi-retired since stepping down as co-chair of Orrick’s Public Finance Group at the start of 2021.

“I thought it was time for someone else to do it after 40 years,” said Davis, a well-known figure in California public finance circles. Unburdening himself from the management responsibilities left him feeling like he has a part-time job.

The lessened responsibilities, which he enjoys, have allowed Davis to focus on the complex transactions that are his trademark.

During a 50-year career, Davis had a lead role in more than 1,000 transactions, according to Adi Weisman, Orrick’s communications manager.

Davis is particularly well-known “and sought out for his ability to apply his unusually extensive and diverse experience in figuring out how to finance projects or programs when it isn’t clear whether or how that can be done, how to solve problems as they arise and how to make new programs work,” Weisman wrote in nominating Davis for the honor.

As head of Orrick’s public finance group, he helped grow the practice into its decades-long run topping the national rankings for bond counsel.

“As chair, Roger orchestrated the team’s transformation from a single office with less than a dozen lawyers and a predominately northern California practice to a national practice in 10 offices around the country, and roughly 100 lawyers and paraprofessionals,” Weisman wrote. The firm has “consistently ranked number one in the country in volume as bond and disclosure counsel and in the top three as underwriter’s counsel.”

Davis would grow in stature as a bond attorney as the state grew to one of the largest issuers in the country.

Orrick only had a municipal bond practice in San Francisco when Davis started out, and the firm was “co-monopolistic,” with O’Melveny & Myers in the state, he said. “Our firm and O’Melveny & Myers had 90% of the market. All the leading firms were pretty much in New York.”

But in the late 1970s public finance exploded in volume and range, which was just “as I was maturing into a senior associate and young partner,” Davis said. “Over time, we were able to grow into a No. 1 firm and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the New York firms we had admired.”

During his tenure at Orrick, Davis has had a lead role “on virtually every type of municipal security, in roughly 25 states and territories,” Weisman wrote.

Davis was also instrumental in creating and was the principal draftsman of legislation establishing the Public Finance Authority under Wisconsin law, for the stated purpose and ability to finance any kind of project in any state, Weisman said.

Davis wrote and, in some cases, lobbied for key California bond legislation, said Weisman, including local government refunding laws, general authorization for swaps and investment agreements, pledges and security interests, validation action procedures, and legislation establishing the California Health Facilities Financing Authority and the California School Finance Authority.

He was recognized twice by The American Lawyer as Dealmaker of the Year, ranked an Acritas Star Lawyer, and was declared the “The Bond King” in a cover article by California Lawyer.

Davis created and led the management committee for BLX Group, a wholly owned non-law subsidiary of Orrick that provides pre- and post-issuance advisory and compliance services such as arbitrage rebate, continuing disclosure, investment bidding, bond pricing and other financial advisory, swap placement and monitoring, and bond program administration for over 1,000 issuers and borrowers nationally, about half of which are not Orrick clients, Weisman said.

The 76-year-old is, of course, thinking about retirement, because “most people my age have retired.”

“I’m gradually working my way toward retirement, as slowly as I can, while enjoying what I am doing,” Davis said. “In some sense I am semi-retired since I stepped down as chairman of the group, as that eliminated 30% to 40% of what I was doing.”

For now, he plans to continue mentoring other attorneys, aiding with succession and being called in to help on deals that need someone who calls himself a generalist and has worked on nearly every kind of bond transaction imaginable.