WASHINGTON — Veteran bond lawyer C. Willis Ritter will hang his own shingle when Ungaretti & Harris LLP closes its office here next month. Ritter, a former Treasury Department official who helped write many of the original tax-exempt bond regulations, will continue to work as special tax counsel and tax controversy counsel, and provide legal advice to issuers, attorneys, and underwriters on arbitrage rebate and other matters affecting tax-exempt bonds. Ritter joined Ungaretti & Harrris in the fall of 2002. The firm is phasing out its Washington presence and will close the office at the end of September. Rather than join another firm, Ritter, who plans to work as a public finance attorney for another seven or eight years, said he was more interested in setting up his own shop. He plans to open the Law Office of C. Willis Ritter in downtown Washington on Oct. 1.“At this stage of my life and career, it’s a lot simpler to go out on my own,” he said in a recent interview. “I’m looking forward to continuing my practice while having more time for my wife, children, and grandchildren.”Ritter said he and Ungaretti are parting ways on good terms, after their five-year partnership. “They are first-class lawyers and people,” he said.Prior to 2002, Ritter spent three years overseas setting up financing structures for various charitable projects for USAID and the United Nations. He was a longtime partner at Haynes & Miller but left in 1991, shortly after the firm merged with Arter & Hadden LLP, to set up Ritter Eichner Norris PLLC with another partner from Haynes & Miller. Earlier in his career, from 1969 to 1972, Ritter served as senior attorney adviser in the Treasury Department’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, where he helped draft the original statutes and regulations for municipal bonds. He also wrote the original regulations for the State and Local Government Series securities, or SLGS, program, which is used by tax-exempt bond issuers who need to invest bond proceeds.Ritter was one of the founders of the Bond Attorneys Workshop, which spawned the creation of the National Association of Bond Lawyers. He has served as a board member and treasurer of NABL, as well as the chair of the association’s education committee, and currently heads its panel on derivatives. He earned his law degree from the University of Virginia in 1965 and his bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1962.
