PROVIDENCE – The lawyers who worked on the Pawtucket soccer stadium deal scored a nice payday.
Eight law firms earned a combined $3.5 million for their work on securing $54 million in bonds to help finance Rhode Island FC’s future 10,000-plus-seat home stadium, Tidewater Landing, WPRI-TV CBS 12 reported Thursday. Those bonds could cost taxpayers as much as $131.7 million over 30 years.
According to documents and supplementary information WPRI obtained from Pawtucket and state officials, the legal payments account for roughly half of the $7 million in expenses tied to issuing the bond.
Locke Lord LLP received $1.4 million as compensation for its work on the transaction. Partners Karen Grande, Walter St. Onge and Todd Cooper, and senior counsel Susan Kiernan did the bulk of the work on the deal, according to the report.
The firm told WPRI its lawyers lowered their fee “by a substantial amount” and noted they have worked with the city of Pawtucket since 1988.
“Locke Lord worked on the stadium transaction for four years, much longer than most of the professionals involved and certainly a much longer period of time than most bond financing transactions,” Locke Lord managing partners Christopher Graham and Thomas ‘Jeff’ Jefferson told WPRI in a joint statement.
Graham and Jefferson also emphasized to WPRI that the firm's lawyers had no role in determining the financial terms of the bond.
“Interest rates are a function of various factors, including prevailing market conditions, interest rates for unrated high-yield debt, investor demand and security provided for the bonds,” they said in their statement to WPRI. “These matters were addressed by the underwriter, the municipal advisor and the ultimate purchaser of the bonds. We documented the terms of the bond issue that were finally acceptable to all parties to this transaction.”
Savage Law Partners was paid twice during the transaction and netted $774,534, according to the report. The first payment was for $774,534 as serving as “special development counsel” to Pawtucket Mayor Don Grebien’s administration. The second payment for $180,000 was for serving as one of two legal counsels to the bond’s underwriters.
Jeremy Savage, the firm’s managing partner and its point person on the stadium bond, did not respond to WPRI’s request seeking comment Wednesday.
Quarles & Brady LLP received $695,000 for the work of attorney Jeff Peelen, according to the report. He is a partner in the firm’s Milwaukee office.
The other five law firms that worked on the stadium deal earned smaller amounts, WPRI reported.
Timothy Chapman received $138,750 of the bond proceeds for serving as general counsel to the Pawtucket Redevelopment Agency; Nixon Peabody LLP received $115,000 for serving as the state’s legal counsel for disclosure; Ballard Spahr LLP was paid $75,000 for serving as legal counsel for the bond purchaser; and Pannone Lopes Devereaux & O’Gara LLC, which got $62,500 for serving as legal counsel to U.S. Bank, the trustee and disbursing agent for the bond.
