Janet Goelz Hoffman

Janet Goelz Hoffman concentrates in financial products used in the public finance law marketplace. She regularly acts either as bond counsel, underwriter’s counsel, borrower’s counsel or credit enhancer’s counsel in financings for nonprofit organizations, including many hospital systems, cultural and educational institutions and continuing care retirement communities. She is an active member of the National Association of Bond Lawyers and is a regular panelist at NABL’s annual Bond Attorney’s Workshop. She regularly contributes to Kramer’s Financial Products: Taxation, Regulation and Design with respect to municipal securities. Ms. Hoffman is the author of the chapter, "Keys to Public Finance Success," a chapter in Winning Legal Strategies for Public Finance Lawyers: Leading Lawyers on Government Debt, State Law, and Federal Tax (Aspatore Books, 2005). She is listed in the 2008–2012 editions of The Best Lawyers in America and was named the Best Lawyers' 2012 Chicago Public Finance Law Lawyer of the Year. Ms. Hoffman is also listed in the 2009–2012 editions of Illinois Super Lawyers. She is the vice chairperson of Three Crowns Park, a 117 year old retirement community, and a member of the board of directors of Three Crowns Foundation that supports Three Crowns Park. Ms. Hoffman also is a Regular Fellow of the American College of Bond Counsel. She is a past secretary of the Chicago Bar Association’s Securities Law Committee and the past secretary of the Energy Commission of the City of Evanston, Illinois that studies options for the City’s electric service. She was also a member of the City’s negotiation team that successfully negotiated a new electricity franchise with Commonwealth Edison. She is active in other community organizations.

Some of the more unusual financings Ms. Hoffman has been involved in include the following: capital financings for a college dorm sponsored by three universities, a well-established opera company, a major contemporary art museum, children’s, rehabilitation and other specialty hospitals, several Indian-affiliated corporations and an urban public radio station; several financings (both taxable and tax-exempt) for physician groups; numerous financings that established major health care systems; a financing that enabled a hospital to withdraw from a religiously affiliated health care system, substituting its own debt; a financing involving the issuance of special obligation bonds to enable the gross defeasance of outstanding bonds previously subject only to in-substance defeasance; the financing of the purchase of a for-profit hospital and its conversion to not-for-profit status; several major capital financings for a regional cancer research center and many financings for colleges, universities, and private and charter schools. In addition, Ms. Hoffman has been involved in a variety of continuing care retirement community financings, including many start-up continuing care retirement communities, workouts of failing retirement communities and the first variable-rate, credit-enhanced financing for continuing care retirement communities done in the country.

Ms. Hoffman graduated from Lake Forest College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and received her law degree from Northwestern University School of Law, where she was the Managing Editor of the Northwestern University Law Review.