Kelly has served as counsel for major state and local government issuers, public school and charter school financings, higher education including university financings, airport, highway and transit financings and tax-supported debt. She also serves as counsel to investment banking firms in the underwriting or remarketing of governmental bonds and routinely provides counsel on various securities law matters, including Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) rules and regulations governing the municipal securities market and disclosure practices. This experience, coupled with her prior roles as an issuer, municipal advisor and investment banker gives her insight into the perspectives of all participants on her deal teams, helps her find the right note to hit during critical negotiations and allows her to anticipate the needs of her clients.
Kelly is known for being calm under pressure, building consensus on deal teams to meet critical deal milestones and for anticipating and solving issues before they become problems. She strategically negotiates, advises on and drafts financing documents, including drafting official statements, bond purchase agreements, disclosure obligations, transaction approvals and deal structuring, to close multi-million bond financings, all while serving as a zealous advocate and deal partner to her clients.
Before joining Katten, Kelly served as director of capital markets for the State of Illinois, managing $30 billion of debt. She joined the State of Illinois at a moment when the State faced daunting challenges, including an unprecedented budget impasse. Kelly issued over $10 billion of new money and refunding bonds during her tenure at the State, including one of the largest tax exempt sales and most complicated transactions in the last decade with the issuance of $6 billion of general obligation bonds.
Earlier Kelly served as municipal advisor for over a decade to major state and local governments and airports on the issuance of more than $10 billion of debt in the capital markets. She assisted her clients in New York and in the Midwest with the creation of new credits, structuring, pricing and deal management.
At the start of her career, Kelly worked as an investment banking analyst in the oil and gas division at JP Morgan Chase.
