Gilmore & Bell Opens New Nebraska Public Finance Office

CHICAGO — Missouri-based law firm Gilmore & Bell PC has opened a new Nebraska office staffed by a team of three public finance attorneys who joined from Baird Holm LLP.

Longtime public finance attorney Mike Rogers will head the new office, located in Omaha. Gilmore & Bell already has an office in Lincoln. Christine Klinker and Colleen Duncan round out the new Omaha staff.

“Mike and his team add experience and capacity to our Nebraska practice and our entire firm,” David Queen, president of Gilmore & Bell, said in a statement. “We have been working hard to find just the right people to open an Omaha office.”

Rogers joined Gilmore from Baird Holm, where he had worked since 2001 and had been the chair of the public finance section since its creation in 2009. Klinker had been at Baird for five years, and Duncan for one year.

Rogers said his move was prompted in part by a desire to join a firm that focused solely on public finance and had a larger number of attorneys. Gilmore Bell has more than 40 bond attorneys in five offices across the Midwest.

“I have a huge amount of respect for Baird — it’s an excellent law firm,” he said. “For the long term of my practice, the rest of my career, I saw practicing at a speciality firm with over 52 attorneys who practice only in public finance as being a better position for me and allowing me to provide the best service to clients.”

The departure of Rogers, Klinker and Duncan cut Baird’s public finance team to three from six. The remaining attorneys — Charles Addy, Richard Pedersen and Parker Schenken — are well-known veterans who will keep the firm’s public finance practice healthy, said the firm’s managing director, Richard Putnam.

“We’re going to absolutely continue to be active in the industry,” Putnam said. “We’ve been at it for decades.”

At Gilmore, Rogers said he plans to continue to focus on a wide range of government issuers and financings as he did at Baird.

“It’s the same sort of practice the rest of the firm has at Gilmore Bell, and it’s very important to me,” he said. Gilmore’s new Omaha office brings the firm’s Nebraska-based public finance attorneys to five.

The Lincoln office, opened in 2002, is headed by Lauren Wismer. The firm’s clients include the University of Nebraska and the city of Lincoln.

Gilmore & Bell ranked 10th among bond counsel in the Midwest during the first half of 2012, working on 150 issues that totaled $1.3 billion of par amount. It was top bond counsel in Missouri and Kansas and third in Nebraska for the first half of 2012. Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP was Nebraska’s top counsel for the first half of 2012, followed by Baird.

In 2011, Gilmore & Bell ranked first among bond counsel for the number of issues nationally, 430, as well as in Missouri, Kansas and the Midwest. It was first in Missouri, Kansas and the Midwest for overall dollar volume in 2011 as well. It also has has offices in Kansas City, St. Louis and Wichita.

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