BAM hires former Nixon Peabody employee Dia Walrath

BAM Mutual has hired Dia Walrath, a former counsel in the public finance department at Nixon Peabody, as an associate counsel and vice president out of its San Francisco office.

As part of her new role, she, like others in the insurer's public finance legal team, will support BAM's underwriting and credit departments in executing every credit BAM insures and advise on other legal matters.

BAM insured $16.586 billion of deals in 2024, up 34.5% year-over-year.

"Dia has worked on many types of municipal finance transactions in the market today, and BAM and our member-issuers will benefit from her diverse skill sets, particularly as we respond to increasing investor demand for insured bonds in additional states and sectors," said Jeff Fried, BAM's general counsel. "We're particularly looking forward to benefitting from her local knowledge of credit, legal, and political conditions in California, which is our largest market by par insured."

BAM's legal group works "collaboratively with bankers, municipal advisors, and other counterparties to help issuers structure complex financings early in their project process," he said.

Therefore, adding a person with a "breadth of experience" as bond counsel, underwriter's counsel and disclosure counsel will continue to boost BAM's execution capabilities, Fried said.

Walrath spent nearly 10 years at Nixon Peabody, working on various muni market deals and public-private partnerships for cities and counties, school districts, airports and other transportation issuers and 501(c)(3) borrowers.

She also served as underwriter's counsel for the deal won the Bond Buyer's Far West Deal of the Year: $2.9 billion to refund Build America Bonds from the Los Angeles Unified School District.

"I've seen issuers use BAM insurance to attract additional investor interest to their transactions and access the capital markets at the lowest possible cost," Walrath said. "I look forward to joining the BAM team to support issuers and their deal teams as they use insurance as a tool to make their transactions more efficient and transparent."

Before joining Nixon Peabody, Walrath served as a legislative aide in the U.S. Senate. She received her law degree from the UC Davis School of Law and her undergraduate degree in political science from Kalamazoo College, according to her LinkedIn profile.