Indianapolis-based Ice Miller LLP picked up a seven-member team that will expand its on-the-ground expertise in arbitrage rebate compliance.
The team of specialists, who are not lawyers, officially joined the firm’s public finance group Wednesday.
The team comes from Bank of New York Mellon and includes Samantha Duke, who joins the firm as a senior rebate manager. The others are Kristen Kalinowski, senior rebate analyst; Sally Johnson, senior rebate analyst; Kevin Crump, rebate analyst; Caroline Lee, rebate analyst; Ambereen Alequresh, rebate analyst; and Donna VanSlambrook, administrative assistant.
Ice Miller was one of the first firms to launch a rebate compliance practice that provides legal opinions to ensure compliance by issuers with the rebate requirements of the tax code and regulations for any type of tax-exempt bonds or tax-advantaged bonds that require arbitrage rebate calculations.
It dates back to 1986 and since then the firm has employed between one and three specialists in the area, so the new group which brings a collective 140 years of experience to the table marks a significant expansion.
“The depth of experience and knowledge held by these new team members will allow the firm to meaningfully expand our rebate work,” said Tyler Kalachnik, vice-chair of Ice Miller’s public finance practice.
“We are always looking for talented professionals and our historical rebate practice provided the ability to align with this group,” the firm added. “Ice Miller was founded as a bond counsel firm in 1910 and has always emphasized and had a robust public finance practice. We continue to grow our public finance practice as the firm recognizes the importance of this area.”
BNY Mellon recently announced that it was exiting the arbitrage rebate field.
“We chose Ice Miller for its team approach and reputation for quality, and the fact that we will now have the option to be able to provide our clients with a legal opinion along with the calculations,” Duke said in a statement.
The group will continue working from its existing bases, which include Memphis, Tennessee, North Carolina and California.
The new hires expand Ice Miller’s physical footprint. It currently operates offices in Indianapolis; Columbus; Chicago and DuPage County, Illinois; New York; Philadelphia; and Washington D.C. The firm also has some lawyers that work remotely in other locations with public finance being conducted out of all the offices.
The firm ranked ninth last year among bond counsel in the Midwest credited with 230 deals valued at $3.4 billion and was the top-ranked firm in Indiana, according to data from Refinitiv. The firm has 340 legal professionals in its seven offices covering 20 practice areas.
