Gonzalez Saggio Taps C. Willis Ritter To Set Up Office in Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON - C. Willis Ritter, a veteran bond lawyer who previously headed up his own firm, has joined Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan LLP as a partner and will help establish a Washington, D.C., office for the law firm.

Ritter, a former Treasury Department official who helped write many of the original tax-exempt bond regulations, will also co-chair the firm's national public finance practice.

"The firm is extremely excited about Mr. Ritter joining. Not only does he bring a real rich background and history to our firm in the tax area, but he's also a serious teaching influence, if you will, in that he's taken some of the younger attorneys and he's helping to tutor them in their tax expertise," said Tim Wright 3d, one of the partners of the firm.

While Ritter is currently working out of the firm's Chicago office, Wright said he will return to Washington to head up a branch office the firm plans to establish there within the next two months. The firm was bond counsel on 10 muni transactions this year through July 15, ranking 98 among bond counsel firms.

Prior to joining Gonzalez Saggio, Ritter opened the Law Office of C. Willis Ritter in downtown Washington last October. He established his own practice after Ungaretti & Harris LLP closed its Washington office last fall.

He had spent five years with that firm, after having joined them in the fall of 2002.

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, soon after the firm merged with Arter & Hadden LLP, to set up Ritter Eichner Norris PLLC with another partner from Haynes & Miller.

Ritter served as senior attorney adviser in the Treasury Department's office of the assistant secretary for tax policy from 1969 to 1972, helping to draft the original statutes and regulations for municipal bonds. He also wrote the original regulations for the State and Local Government Series, or SLGS securities 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.

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