Jason Akers got hooked on public finance early. The National Association of Bond Lawyers’ new president was fresh out of school, working for a large Southeast firm, when one of its bond lawyers took him under his wing.
“I enjoyed the interaction with public officials, helping to make their ideas reality,” Akers told The Bond Buyer. “Our field of law has been described as ‘creative law with tangible results.’ It is rewarding to finish a transaction and eventually see a school or a road or a water tower in an area that desperately needs it.”
After serving as chairman of NABL’s Education Committee and 2013 chairman of its Fundamentals of Municipal Bond Law Seminar, Akers was named president of the 45-year-old organization.
National Association of Bond Lawyers
Akers, a partner at Foley & Judell, LLP, earned his B.A. from Millsaps College and his J.D. from the University of Mississippi. He coauthored the third edition of “The Functions and Professional Responsibility of Bond Counsel” and the sixth edition of “Federal Securities Laws of Municipal Bonds Deskbook,” and served as a member of NABL’s Subcommittee on Professional Responsibility.
“NABL exists to promote the integrity of the municipal market, and it speaks volumes that NABL undertook the ‘Functions’ project three times in its first 30 years of existence,” he said. “It is critical that we, as bond lawyers, realize that our work impacts the public trust as a whole, so we must be vigilant about our ethical responsibilities.”
Akers’ initial challenge could involve rocky legislative terrain.
The controversial Financial Data Transparency Act is a “complicated endeavor” full of “twists and turns [that] have exposed significant divisions, both among those who will be affected by the coming regulations and among the regulators themselves,” Akers said in a Wednesday speech at the NABL’s annual conference in Chicago.
But perhaps the most impassioned moments in Akers’ speech involved his forceful defense of the tax exemption on municipal bonds. With provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017
Akers stressed in his speech the tax exemption must not become just another shortsighted “pay for.”
“Any effort to limit or eliminate the tax exemption on bonds would amount to a federal takeover of local decision-making and rip money away from the communities that know their respective infrastructure needs best,” he said. “As a public finance community, we cannot and will not let that happen.”
The issue hits home for Akers. Infrastructure needs in his state, Louisiana, have likely already outgrown the state’s capacity to pay for them, he said, and tax-exempt muni bonds mitigate the affordability problem.
“It would be devastating if the necessary improvements became even more costly,” Akers told The Bond Buyer. “Many of my clients have prioritized investments in sustainability and flood protection, financing levees, drainage projects, and roads that are used as evacuation routes. These projects protect both private property and other public infrastructure, reducing the impact and ultimate cost of weather-related events.”
Akers said he’s committed to explaining the importance of municipal bonds to key decision makers, whether they want to hear it or not. And he stressed it will be a team effort: NABL has crafted a Strategic Action Plan that will make the organization the “go to” authority on public finance law, both for members of Congress and the public.
Another priority for Akers is the Young Lawyers’ Network, a recently formed group within NABL for those practicing less than a decade. Inspired by a network that fostered Akers’ own career development, it will serve as a source of advice, a link to mentors and a launchpad for future leaders.
“I want to see it get off the ground and become a forum for networking and volunteerism for the next generation of NABL leaders,” Akers said. “We have good people involved with this project, and I am sure it will be a success.”