Lona concentrates her practice in the area of public finance tax and financial analysis, overseeing the related arbitrage rebate practice and providing guidance on federal tax topics related to all tax-favored bond financings for governmental and conduit clients.

She has worked on a wide variety of municipal financing transactions including projects for traditional governmental infrastructure, hospital expansion, continuing care retirement communities, cultural facilities, small issue manufacturing and exempt facilities. Lona works with issuers and conduit borrowers to address all of the federal tax issues from the inception of a financing throughout the entire term of the financing and has a wide array of experience in refundings, derivative products, multipurpose allocations and private use analyses.

Additionally, she has acted as special tax counsel to issuers and conduit borrowers in IRS compliance initiatives, IRS bond audits and IRS Voluntary Closing Agreement Program (VCAP) Requests.

Lona has served as a panelist for a tax due diligence and documentation workshop at the annual National Association of Bond Lawyers' Bond Attorneys Workshop. In addition, she is frequently called on to speak at various seminars on IRS arbitrage rebate compliance, private activity tests and post-bond issuance compliance.

Prior to the practice of law, she served as a certified internal auditor for a large publicly traded corporation.

Bar Admissions

Ohio

Kentucky

Education

• University of Kentucky College of Law (J.D., 2000)
  • Kentucky Law Journal, articles editor (1999 - 2000), staff member (1998 - 1999)
  • J. Oexmann Criminal Law Award for "Is the Recent Expansion of Federal Corporate Criminal Liability Justified?" (1999)
• University of Kentucky (M.B.A., magna cum laude, 1995)
• Bellarmine University (B.S., magna cum laude, 1994)

• Rising Star recognition from Cincinnati Law and Politics Magazine (2005-2006, 2009)
• American College of Bond Counsel Fellow

• Certified Arbitrator, Council of Better Business Bureaus
• National Association of Bond Lawyers
• American Bar Association
• Ohio State Bar Association
• Cincinnati Bar Association
• Cincinnati Academy of Leadership for Lawyers (2007)
• Tri-County Economic Development Corporation (Northern Kentucky Tri-ED) Finance & Audit Committee.