Benjamin A. Wills

Ben Wills is a public finance attorney with expertise across the entire field of municipal securities who helps clients navigate complex transactional structures to achieve their financing goals. He has worked on hundreds of transactions and helped secure billions of dollars in financing for his clients.

Ben is a Member in the Firm's Corporate and Public Finance Practice Group based in the Richmond, Virginia office. He helps public entities, nonprofit borrowers, and other market participants finance capital projects through all forms of public finance and municipal bond transactional structures, providing advice from early planning through closing and post-issuance compliance. He serves in a variety of roles, including bond counsel, underwriters' counsel, disclosure counsel, issuer's counsel, lender's counsel, and trustee's counsel to a broad range of clients, such as state entities, regional authorities, municipalities, nonprofit organizations, investment banks and banking institutions. 

Read More

Ben’s practice spans the entire spectrum of public finance, including successful public sales (competitive and negotiated), limited offerings, and private, direct placement or bank loan transactions. He has significant experience with general obligation and revenue-backed bond credits, pooled financing structures, qualified private activity bonds, industrial/economic development authority conduit issuances, community development authority (CDA) financings, lease-revenue debt, bond anticipation notes (BANs), refundings, tenders, exchanges, and appropriation-backed or moral obligation credits. Ben regularly advises on project and infrastructure finance for general governmental, water and wastewater, transportation (including tax and toll-backed financings), higher education, healthcare and continuing care, stadium, airport, and economic-development projects. 

Through this experience, Ben has developed a sophisticated understanding of federal tax and securities laws, and state and local government law applicable to public finance, which allows him to ensure transactions meet applicable tax exemption requirements, comply with primary offering and continuing disclosure obligations, and are properly authorized. He counsels clients on all legal facets of a financing, beginning with the preparation or review, as necessary, of authorizing legislation and working with the bond issuer’s staff, financial advisor, general counsel and other members of the financing team to develop a sound transactional structure. Ben prepares and reviews authorizing documents and resolutions, security documents (such as trust indentures or loan agreements), and disclosure and offering documents (such as official statements). He works efficiently to guide transactions through closing, conducting due diligence examinations and coordinating the completion of all necessary closing materials. After closing, Ben continues to work with his clients to ensure they remain in compliance with all applicable requirements.

Ben is an active member of the National Association of Bond Lawyers and the Local Government Attorneys of Virginia, where he stays current with evolving legal developments applicable to public finance and contributes to advancing the profession.

Read Less

Practices & Industries