Jennifer Capasso Mendonça

Locke Lord LLP

111 Huntington Ave., 9th Floor

Boston, MA 02199-7613

jennifer.mendonca@lockelord.com Tel - (617) 239-0845 Fax - (617) 316-8208

Specialties

Borrower's Counsel, Finance & Financial Institutions, Health Care Finance, Multifamily housing bonds, Municipal derivatives, Municipal revenue bonds, Post-issuance tax compliance, Private Placements, Public Finance, Securities law, Single-family housing bonds, Tax, and Underwriter's Counsel

Professional Affiliates

Fellow, American College of Bond Counsel

Member, Massachusetts Bar Association

Member, National Association of Bond Lawyers (NABL)

Steering Committee Member, NABL The Workshop (formerly Bond Attorney’s Workshop) (2017-2019)

President, Boston Chapter of Women in Public Finance (2019-2022)

Board Member, Boston Chapter of Women in Public Finance

Board Member, Greater Boston Legal Services

Education

J.D., summa cum laude, Boston College Law School, 2006
Order of the Coif
Articles Editor, Boston College Law Review

M.A., summa cum laude, Boston College Lynch School of Education, 2006

B.S., Accounting and Information Systems, magna cum laude, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, 2001

Biography

Jennifer Capasso Mendonça focuses her practice exclusively on all aspects of taxable and tax-exempt finance for governmental and 501(c)(3) entities, as bond counsel, borrower’s counsel, underwriter’s counsel, lender’s counsel and disclosure counsel. Her broad-based experience with virtually every type of public finance transaction allows her to provide high-quality and efficient legal service to her clients in connection with all aspects of financing transactions, including structuring, tax law analysis, document drafting and negotiation and closing.

Jennifer’s experience includes:

General obligation and revenue bonds for governmental entities

Qualified 501(c)(3) bonds for nonprofit institutions, including: colleges and universities, independent and charter schools, hospitals, assisted living and other health care entities, and other charitable organizations

Single- and multi-family housing bonds

Small issue industrial development bonds

Exempt facility bonds

She has extensive experience with both fixed rate and variable rate multimodal debt, public offerings and private placement transactions and derivative products. She also has significant public finance tax law experience, particularly with respect to 501(c)(3) institutions, including assisting clients with IRS audits, VCAP requests, private use analysis and post-issuance compliance.

Representative Experience

Extensive experience serving as bond counsel, borrower’s counsel, underwriter’s counsel and lender’s counsel for taxable and tax-exempt borrowings for:

Higher education institutions such as Babson College, Bentley University, Brandeis University, Boston University, Brown University, Emerson College, Harvard University, Northeastern University, Suffolk University, Smith College and Williams College, among many others
Large and complex health care institutions such as Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston Medical Center, Cape Cod Healthcare and Lahey Health System
Independent schools including Boston College High School, Cushing Academy, Groton School and St. John’s Preparatory School
Charter schools including Boston Collegiate Charter School, Bridge Boston Charter School, Brooke Charter School, and Foxborough Regional Charter School

Serves as bond counsel to the State of Vermont in connection with its general obligation and transportation infrastructure bond financings

Serves as bond counsel to the New Hampshire Municipal Bond Bank in connection with its various general obligation and revenue bonding programs

Serves as bond counsel, underwriter’s counsel or issuer’s counsel with respect to a variety of single family and multifamily mortgage revenue bond financings for the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency, Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, Florida Housing Finance Corporation Illinois Housing Development Authority, Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation and Vermont Housing Finance Agency

Serves as lender’s counsel for taxable and tax-exempt borrowings in New England and New York

Serves as disclosure counsel to the Massachusetts Port Authority and District of Columbia

Tax counsel to nonprofit borrowers and conduit issuers regarding IRS audits of their tax-exempt issues and experience assisting clients with negotiation and settlement with IRS under the Voluntary Closing Agreement Program

Assists clients with conducting private use analysis of bond financed facilities and in developing programs to maintain the compliance of their bond issues with applicable federal tax law requirements after the bonds have been issued