Title: Partner
Firm: Nixon Peabody
Age: 35
Rising Star Barry Carrigan finds time not only to work on complicated and ground-breaking financings, but also to volunteer for several charitable organizations and mentor associates at Nixon Peabody.
Barry led the Nixon Peabody team serving as counsel to BNY Mellon Capital Markets, LLC, the bank that was the bidding agent, underwriter, and settlement agent for the Federal Reserve’s $500 billion Municipal Liquidity Facility program, wrote Nixon Peabody partner Kenneth Lind, who nominated Barry as a Rising Star.
“Barry’s diligent work on this ground-breaking transaction will undoubtedly have a significant impact nationwide in assisting communities to weather the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus,” Lind wrote.
Barry’s undergraduate studies in finance and economics at Syracuse University in New York teed him up for a career in public finance, but he actually began his career working two years for PriceWaterhouseCoopers in healthcare consulting.
While there, he said he decided he could do more with a law degree and returned to his alma matter with the aim of becoming an attorney working in finance, economics or healthcare.
After earning his law degree, he landed a job as a summer associate, and then associate with Nixon Peabody’s Rochester, N.Y. office where he worked on conduit and private activity bond transactions.
Named a partner in 2018, he is the firm’s deputy recruiting committee chairperson.
Barry called working on the MLF a career-defining moment, but joked that it’s easy to say that in a career that has spanned just over a decade.
He advised in the issuance of $1.2 billion of non-investment grade, tax-exempt bonds for the Iowa fertilizer project, the largest such financing in the tax-exempt market to-date, Lind said.
His practice also involves transportation, greenfield, proton cancer, affordable housing and charter school financings.
In his spare time, he has served as vice president on the Harbor House of Rochester board in 2018, which provides lodging for families of adult critical care patients. He also helped create ROCovery Fitness, Inc. a nonprofit that helps people recovering from drug addiction through physical fitness, and volunteers with Foodlink, which stocks food pantries.
“I miss being able to volunteer first hand,” Barry said, adding he has increased his pro bono legal work since the COVID-19 outbreak has limited his hands-on volunteer work.
