SAN FRANCISCO — The California Treasurer’s Office has admitted law firm Polsinelli Shughart PC into the state’s bond counsel pool.
The admission allows the national law firm to work on bond deals for the state. It comes shortly after Polsinelli acquired previous pool member Quateman LLP, formerly California’s biggest women-owned municipal bond counsel firm.
Polsinelli joins 26 other law firms in the pool, including Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLC, Nixon Peabody LLP, and Stradling, Yocca, Carlson & Rauth.
The acquisition, which was announced at the end of June, added a West Coast presence and expanded Polsinelli Shughart’s public finance team.
In 2010, Quateman ranked in the top 20 of disclosure counsel for volume of bond deals, handling more than $2 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.
The new arm in Los Angeles focuses on a range of public finance sectors, including airports, ports, water and power, housing, and pollution control.
Started 22 years ago by Lisa Greer Quateman, Quateman grew from a one-woman shop to an outfit with half a dozen lawyers focusing on municipal finance, complex real estate workouts, and corporate finance.
Now, she is the Los Angeles managing partner at Polsinelli Shughart.
Kathleen Brown, a managing director at Goldman, Sachs & Co., had helped give Quateman a start in the municipal business when she pushed to include women- and minority-owned businesses among the state’s financing teams during her tenure as California treasurer from 1991 to 1995.
