Lona J. Valentine

Partner

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.

Credentials

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)

Bar admissions

  • Ohio
  • Kentucky

Affiliations and memberships

  • 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.

Distinctions

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

Career Highlights
  • Bond Counsel for $1.16 Billion Health Care Financing

    We served as bond counsel for Bon Secours Mercy Health, Inc., one of the nation’s 20 largest health care systems, with respect to the issuance of several series of bonds totaling $1.16 billion in aggregate principal amount. As bond counsel, we assisted with each step of the financing process, which involved the public offering of municipal tax-exempt and corporate taxable bonds involving issuers in three states. The bonds were issued in April of 2020 and enabled the financing or refinancing of health care facilities in Ohio, South Carolina, and Virginia while also contributing to the re-opening of the capital markets for health care borrowers during the COVID-19 pandemic. These combined bond deals were selected by The Bond Buyer as its 2020 Deal of the Year in the Health Care Financing Category.

Publications
  • April 7, 2020

    Tax-Exempt Debt Payment Deferrals For Municipal Securities

News
  • June 6, 2025

    Dinsmore Earns Top Honors in 2025 Chambers USA Rankings

  • January 13, 2023

    Dinsmore Honored for Second Time in Three Years with Healthcare Deal of the Year Award by Bond Buyer

  • December 10, 2020

    Dinsmore Serves as Bond Counsel for Bond Buyer Health Care Financing 2020 Deal of the Year