Former New York MTA Official Kenneth Lind Joins Nixon Peabody

The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s former acting finance director and deputy general counsel for public finance, Kenneth Lind, has left to join Nixon Peabody LLP earlier this month.

Lind returned to private practice in the firm’s public finance group after about 12 years at the MTA.

“Ken brings a substantial and wide-ranging body of experience in municipal finance to add to the firm’s public finance practice group,” said Nixon Peabody’s head of public finance practice Arthur F. McMahon Jr. in a statement. “He has been involved in almost every aspect of the public finance practice and has worked in multiple geographical areas as well.”

Lind said he doesn’t know what areas he will be covering for Nixon Peabody yet but he expects to be working on deals around the nation, not just in New York.

“It’s a matter of just helping out right now and finding a niche,” he said.

Lind came to the MTA in 1996 after working on bond deals at Brown & Wood LLP for more than a decade. The firm merged with Sidley Austin LLP in 2001. He started at the firm’s New York office in 1980 where he worked on the financings for the Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina and the Broward County Resource Recovery solid waste system in Florida.

He joined its Los Angeles office as a partner in 1987 where he served as bond counsel for Los Angeles as well as other cities and counties up and down the coast until leaving for the MTA.

Last year Nixon Peabody served as bond counsel for one $425.6 million MTA deals but state ethics laws prohibit him from working on MTA deals for two years. At the MTA, he was part of the team that drafted legislation to allow the authority to restructure $14 billion of debt and consolidate some of its credits. The MTA began its restructuring in 2002.

Lind took over as acting MTA finance director in December of 2006, when then finance director Patrick McCoy left to become executive director of the New York City Municipal Water Finance Authority. Vinay Dayal, the MTA’s deputy finance director, has taken over Lind’s duties as acting finance director.

Lind earned his law degree at New York Law School in 1977 and also has a master’s in law from New York University. He received his undergraduate degree in history from Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y.

Nixon Peabody has been the top ranked underwriter’s counsel in the nation for the past two years, as measured by equal participation in deals in which multiple firms participated, working on $19.45 billion of deals in 2007 and $12.59 billion in 2006, according to Thomson Financial.

The firm slipped one spot in national rankings last year for bond counsel work to 9th, serving as counsel on $8.21 billion of bonds. In the Northeast region, Nixon was also the top ranked underwriter’s counsel over the past two years while slipping in its ranking as bond counsel from third in 2006 to sixth in 2007, according to Thomson.

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