HILLS STERN & MORLEY - Key Persons
Education
J.D., Notre Dame Law School
LL.M (International and Comparative Law), Georgetown University Law Center
B.A. (high honors), Michigan State University
Barbara Day has extensive experience in the international development finance area. In 2000, she joined Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) as a project attorney and served in a number of capacities, with much of her OPIC career focused on the investment funds. While at OPIC, Ms. Day served as Associate General Counsel for Investment Funds, including two years as Acting Head of the Investment Funds Department. She retired from OPIC in June 2017 as Deputy Counsel/General Counsel.
While at OPIC, Ms. Day served as primary in-house counsel on multiple loans to debt and equity funds, as well as restructurings. As Associate General Counsel, she was responsible for standardizing the requirements for anti-corruption/KYC/character due diligence for investment funds transactions, and she led the legal work related to restructuring OPIC's investment funds product to develop an "unlevered" as well as "levered" loan facility. She was integrally involved in the development of the Innovative Financial Intermediary Program (IFIP) and the IFIP Small Funds template documents.
Before joining OPIC, Ms. Day was a partner with the law firm Zuckerman Spaeder LLP in Washington, D.C., where her practice focused on business transactions and insolvencies. She received a J.D. cum laude from Notre Dame Law School and an LL.M in International and Comparative Law with distinction from Georgetown University Law Center during a sabbatical year. Ms. Day serves on the Advisory Board of the University of Michigan Law School's International Transactions Clinic.
Education
LLB, University of Sydney
B.A., University of Sydney
PhD, Monash University
Jonathan Morrow, an Australian lawyer, specializes in international law, natural resource development, and sovereign representations. Since 2006, he has advised the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), working on the KRG Oil and Gas Law and production sharing contract regime. He has advised the Revenue Watch Institute on Libyan constitutional matters, and the UN on the resolution of international boundary disputes. He also has served as senior adviser to the United States Institute of Peace and the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, and he was part of a team advising the KRG Prime Minister on the draft Kurdistan constitution and on the Iraq federal oil and revenue sharing negotiations. From 2001 to 2004 Morrow served as principal legal advisor to the Prime Minister of East Timor on maritime boundary and unitization treaty negotiations with Australia; as deputy negotiator on Timor Sea Treaty and maritime boundary negotiations; and as one of the principal constitutional advisers to the UN Transitional Administrator in East Timor. Other sovereign representations include advising the government of Zambia on the renegotiation of mining agreements and advising the government of Afghanistan on constitutional amendment. Mr. Morrow is admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of New South Wales, and served as a judge's clerk for a senior Australian judge.
Mr. Morrow is not admitted to practice in any State of the United States and does not advise on the laws of any state or any federal laws of the United States.
Job Titles:
- Founding Partner
- Partner
- Member of the District of Columbia
Education
J.D., Stanford Law School
M.A. (Latin American Studies), Stanford University
B.A., Stanford University
Laura Hills is a founding partner of Hills Stern & Morley LLP. She began her emerging markets work in the early days of independent power project financing, representing Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) on the first such project financed by OPIC in Latin America. Since then, she has worked on a variety of generation projects from the large multi-creditor, PPA-backed utility projects to smaller remote mini-grid projects, as well as projects deploying distributed generation.
Prior to founding Hills Stern & Morley, Ms. Hills spent ten years at OPIC, including as Associate General Counsel for Finance where she served as chief counsel to the Agency for all matters involving the finance program. During that period, she acted both as OPIC's lead counsel on a wide range of projects, including major infrastructure, and she supervised line attorneys in connection with a portfolio of project-finance transactions in excess of $2 billion. Transactions included the repowering and expansion of a 980 megawatt cogeneration power generation facility in Colombia, the expansion of a 235 megawatt power generation facility in Guatemala, and the operation and development of a 14 megawatt run-of-river hydroelectric generation facility in Guatemala.
Following her tenure at OPIC, Ms. Hills sought to create a law firm for investors looking to enter or expand in those markets supported by development finance institutions and help them efficiently access those bilateral and multilateral resources created to support their investment. In the years since the Firm's founding, Ms. Hills has continued to work on projects throughout the developing world and in emerging commercial markets. Her project finance work includes representation of: a developer of distributed renewable generation for deployment in East Africa; U.S. Export Import Bank on solar power generation plants in India; a lender to a geothermal power generation facility in the Caribbean; a hotel developer in the Middle East; and a multilateral development agency in the insurance of a toll road investment in Central America, among others.
Ms. Hills is a member of the District of Columbia bar. She received a B.A. in political science and Spanish from Stanford University and a joint JD/MA from Stanford Law School. She was the Editor-in-Chief of the Stanford Journal of International Law. She has held an appointment as Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center (2003-2009) where she taught International Project Finance. Since 2010, Ms. Hills has been included in "Best Lawyers in America" for her work in project finance.
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Member of the District of Columbia
Education
J.D., University of Virginia
B.A., Duke University (magna cum laude)
Mr. Abbey is a member of the District of Columbia bar. He received a B.A. in economics and public policy from Duke University (magna cum laude), and a J.D. from the University of Virginia (Law Review, Articles Review Editor).
Education
J.D., Georgetown University Law Center
MIPP, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
B.A., Harvard University (magna cum laude)
Patrick Schmidt has over 26 years of diverse experience in corporate, legislative and policy matters. His principal focus has been on advising foreign companies and governments on the development and financing of transportation, technology and real estate projects in Latin America and the Caribbean. He has substantial experience with sovereign representation, including advising on matters of financial and economic development. He also has represented foreign and domestic clients on policy matters before the U.S. Congress and Executive Branch. At Georgetown University Law Center, he served as Senior Lead Articles Editor of Law and Policy in International Business (now known as the Georgetown Journal of International Law). He also completed graduate courses in international law in the doctoral program at the University of Madrid (Complutense) Faculty of Law pursuant to a Rotary Foundation Graduate Fellowship. He is the author and co-author of numerous articles and commentary on topics of international law, commerce and public policy, which have appeared in the following publications: The International Lawyer, International Business Lawyer, Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, Der Schweizer Treuhander/L'Expert Comptable Suisse, The Business Link, Law & Policy in International Business, Vanderbilt Law Review, El Cronista Comercial and the Georgetown Journal of International Law.
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Member of the District of Columbia
Education
J.D., Hastings College of Law
B.A., Stanford University (with distinction)
Ronald Jonkers has extensive experience advising governments, international and multilateral organizations, corporations, and banks in oil and gas and other natural resource, international finance, and legislative matters.
Mr. Jonkers is a member of the District of Columbia bar and the California bar. He received a B.A. ("With Distinction") from Stanford University, and a J.D from Hastings College of the Law (University of California).
Education
J.D., Harvard Law School
B.A., University of Pennsylvania
Samuel Stern is a recognized expert in the reform of legal infrastructure in countries moving to open-market economies. He has extensive experience advising governments and private sector entities in respect of legal infrastructure for oil and gas, power, mining, and water. Mr. Stern has served as counsel or advisor to the governments of over 40 countries; and has been a senior legal participant in surveys of the foreign investment climate in Mexico and Venezuela; and of the role of law in the development process in South Korea; and advised a number of countries on the development of their natural resource laws. Mr. Stern has extensive experience in privatization, particularly of utilities and power, including in China, the Philippines, India, Dominican Republic, Malaysia, and Jamaica. He has lectured at conferences around the world and published in professional journals on government regulation, foreign investment/finance, project finance and trade and risk management. Mr. Stern serves as an arbitrator, advocate, or expert in international commercial arbitrations. Before joining the firm, Mr. Stern was a senior partner (and member of the management committee of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and of Dickstein Shapiro, and counsel to Rogers & Wells (now Clifford Chance US LLP). He served as a Visiting Professor from Practice at Harvard Law School, an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law Center, lecturer at Yale, Cambridge, and Sussex Universities, and a board member of the International Law institute. Mr. Stern is a member of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia.
Mr. Stern studied economics at the University of Pennsylvania and law at Harvard Law School, where he was an officer of the Law Review. He was a law clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren.