BurgherGray Welcomes Robert M. Drillings as a Partner in its New York Office

NEW YORK —BurgherGray is pleased to announce that Robert M. Drillings has joined the firm as a Partner in its New York Office, where he will head up the firm’s public finance practice group.

Mr. Drillings brings to BurgherGray nearly four decades of public finance and affordable housing and economic development experience honed at large corporate law firms, government agencies and corporate in-house legal departments. Among the notable positions held over the years are Partner at large corporate law firms (including at Willkie Farr and Gallagher and Chapman and Cutler LLP) and Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the New York State Housing Financing Agency, the State of New York Mortgage Agency, the New York State Affordable Housing Corporation, the New York State Project Finance Agency, the State of New York Municipal Bond Bank, and the Tobacco Settlement Financing Corporation. Robert has also served as General Counsel, Global Infrastructure & Public Finance, for the financial guaranty insurer, CIFG Assurance North America, Inc. In addition to the numerous legal positions held over the years, he has also held private sector business executive level positions at both CIFG and Radian Asset Assurance Inc., another monoline insurer, having held the titles of Managing Director and Deputy Head of Public Finance and as Vice President, Public Finance Risk Management Department, respectively.

As such, Mr. Drillings knowledge spans all aspects of public finance and affordable housing and economic development from all angles. He has represented issuers as bond, disclosure, and special counsel; represented conduit borrowers, including developers of affordable and mixed-income housing; and represented banks acting as underwriters, placement agents, and direct purchasers of municipal obligations. “I’m thrilled to add my extensive experience in in these areas to the BurgherGray toolbox,” said Mr. Drillings. “It’s a great fit, and I intend to leverage my unique skills set to help the firm grow its presence in the public finance and affordable housing arenas to the ultimate benefit of our clients.”

Mr. Drillings experience also includes insurance regulatory and licensure issues; public private partnerships (PPP) and private finance initiatives (PFI); as well as development of affordable housing, governmentally subsidized low-, mixed-, and moderate-income projects, and privatized military housing. “We are excited to have Robert on board,” said Gopal M. Burgher, Managing Partner of BurgherGray. “With his extensive breadth and depth of involvement in public finance and affordable housing and community development garnered from years spent in BigLaw, governmental agencies, and in-house legal departments, Robert will be a tremendous asset to the firm.”

Comprised of former BigLaw senior attorneys, BurgherGray is a certified minority-owned law firm with practices spanning an array of sophisticated transactional matters, including structured finance and securitization, public finance, leverage finance, investment management, mergers and acquisitions, real estate and community development (including real estate fiannce), commercial transactions and IP. The firm rounds out its practices with its complex commercial litigation and investigations practice.

Mr. Drillings is a member of the Bars of the States of New York and Pennsylvania. For more information about Mr. Drillings or the firm, please visit www.burghergray.com. You may also reach Mr. Drillings at (646) 513-3231 or at [email protected].