Ballard Spahr's Han Choi Promoted to Manage Atlanta Office

BRADENTON, Fla. — Ballard Spahr LLP has promoted public finance attorney Han Choi to be managing partner of the firm’s Atlanta office.

The 20-year veteran joined Ballard as a partner a year ago from Schiff Hardin LLP.

Choi’s promotion is part of Ballard’s continuing effort to expand in the Southeast. He also becomes the fourth public finance lawyer to head up one of the firm’s 13 offices in the country, according to William Rhodes, chair of the firm’s public finance department.

“Given current levels of municipal distress, recurring pension issues, and the need to build and improve infrastructure nationwide, we feel it is important to have a public finance presence in a variety of markets nationwide,” Rhodes said.

“Atlanta is a particularly attractive market thanks to the long-term growth in the Southeast and its proximity to state capitals, financial centers, and major ports where we have done public finance work.”

Choi represents government entities, underwriters, financial institutions, borrowers, and trustees. He also has worked on transactions in more than 10 different states, handling securities, tax, real estate, nonprofit, secured lending, and post-issuance compliance matters as well as counseling for profit and nonprofit companies on various issues.

“I am working with my colleagues to expand the breadth of the firm in the Southeast,” Choi said. “Ballard Spahr is a national firm with an extraordinarily deep bench of talented lawyers and that diversity of practice is becoming more apparent every day in Atlanta.”

As a member of Ballard’s Korea Initiative, he also counsels Korean and Korean-American businesses on economic development, mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property, financing, and general commercial litigation.

Choi received a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University, and a law degree from Emory University. He is a member of the National Association of Bond Lawyers.

In 2012, Ballard Spahr ranked 25th nationally as bond counsel working on 97 transactions with a par amount of $3.59 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

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