Ernesto A. Lanza focuses his practice on public finance matters, with a particular emphasis on securities law, disclosure, trading and market structure issues. He works with broker-dealers, municipal advisors, state and local governments, investors, trade groups, industry vendors and other market participants on a broad range of municipal bond, 529 college savings plan and related market matters. In addition, Ernie has transactional experience working as bond counsel to state and local governments as well as underwriter’s counsel on numerous capital financings for a wide variety of public infrastructure, health care, single and multifamily, and other private activity projects totaling in excess of $10 billion.

Previously, Ernie was the Deputy Executive Director for the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB). As second ranking MSRB executive, he served several key senior executive functions, including overseeing market structure matters, transparency initiatives, development of the MSRB’s economic analysis policy, research initiatives and governmental affairs functions. There, he led numerous policy initiatives relating to the municipal securities activities of broker-dealers, municipal advisors, issuers, obligated persons and other municipal market professionals. Prior to his time as Deputy Executive Director, Ernie served as the MSRB’s Chief Legal Officer/General Counsel responsible for all organizational legal and rulemaking matters, including board and staff governance issues; regulatory and compliance issues; contractual, intellectual property and other corporate legal matters; and regulatory coordination with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. He conceived and led the design, development and initial launch of the MSRB’s Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA) website and was responsible for the MSRB’s strategic vision for municipal market transparency initiatives. He also developed the broker-dealer regulatory framework for the 529 college savings plan market and was responsible for interpreting the MSRB’s landmark pay-to-play rule.