Sharon serves as a co-chair of Barclay Damon's Public Finance Practice Area. With over 25 years of legal experience, her practice features a particular emphasis on the federal tax treatment of tax-exempt bond financings. In these matters, Sharon assists her clients in the tax structuring of governmental and private activity bond transactions. Sharon has served as bond counsel, underwriters' counsel, special-tax counsel, and borrower's counsel on a wide variety of public finance transactions, including single-family and multifamily housing; power and energy; 501(c)(3) financings for higher education, health care, assisted living, and cultural institutions; and general obligation bond and note issues for infrastructure projects for cities, towns, villages, and school districts across New York State. Moreover, she has extensive transactional experience with multifamily housing financings involving low-income housing tax credits, historical tax credits, and a variety of issuer and government subsidies and incentives.
She counsels state and local governmental entities, financial institutions, and not-for-profit organizations on a variety of public finance tax issues. She has worked on transactions involving multi-modal structures, complex refundings, derivative products, multiple-year tranches, draw-down bonds, recycled volume cap bonds, pooled financings, private placements, limited public offerings, general-obligation bonds, and revenue bonds.
Sharon additionally advises issuers and borrowers on IRS examinations of tax-exempt bond transactions and post-issuance tax compliance.
Sharon's experience as a tax attorney has given her the ability to simplify complex tax concepts, making her an essential resource for her clients. Additionally, Sharon's pleasant demeanor is a distinctive element of her client relationships.
In addition to her practice, Sharon serves as the firm's diversity partner and as chair of the Diversity Partner Committee. In her role, she leads the firm's diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative, authoring innovative policies and advising firm leadership on effectively recruiting and using the productive talents, energy, and creativity of a diverse workforce for maximum organizational effectiveness and the best use of intellectual capital. Sharon is also a member of the firm’s Wellness Committee.
Outside Barclay Damon, Sharon is a federal income tax adjunct professor at New York Law School.