Title: Senior Associate
Firm: Orrick
Age: 34
In six years working on municipal finance legal issues Amanda Stephens has gained substantial experience developing innovative charter school financing programs.
One of Amanda’s clients is the Equitable Facilities Fund, “a first-of-its-kind nonprofit social impact fund that leverages private charter loans to the public market,” said Orrick Partner Todd Brewer. EFF operates in 13 states so Amanda has her hands full creating appropriate legal documents for each client. She works in the Houston office.
In her private practice work, Amanda has advised on over $2 billion of publicly offered and privately placed charter school financings. Since the start of 2019 she has worked on over $1.5 billion in publicly offered independent school district financings.
“Amanda is one of the hardest working and dedicated lawyers that I’ve ever worked with,” said Orrick Partner Hoang Vu. “If we have a major project or critical deadline, there’s no one I’d rather have on my side than Amanda.”
Amanda said she fell into municipal finance "by accident."
"I previously worked as a criminal prosecutor and then in-house for a financial company to assist with fraud detection and compliance. While in-house I enjoyed working on complex financial transactions and started applying for finance based jobs.”
“The partners that hired me into municipal finance were looking for someone with my financial transaction background and I had to learn the rest,” Amanda said.
“Orrick provides me with so many opportunities to work on all types of complex municipal finance transactions,” Amanda said. “There is always someone in the Orrick Public Finance Group to help when you have a question or need to solve a new problem. Orrick truly encourages us to innovate and find solutions for our clients’ needs.”
