Namita Shah, a partner at Day Pitney and chair of its Private Equity and Finance business unit, practices in the area of public and private finance. She is a member of the firm’s Institutional Finance and Commercial Lending and Municipal Finance practice groups. Shah serves as primary attorney in Day Pitney’s roles as lead bond counsel and lead disclosure counsel for the state of Connecticut.
Shah is actively involved in all aspects of public finance, including bond authorizations, disclosure, tax issues and issuance. Shah acts as bond counsel, disclosure counsel, borrower’s counsel, underwriter’s counsel and trustee’s counsel on general obligation and conduit financings throughout the Northeast region.
“My greatest professional accomplishment,” says Shah, “was being named partner at my firm. The firm recognized the value I could add and voted me in while I was working part-time and pregnant with my third child.”
Shah mentors new attorneys and helped create pipeline programs. She has been a strategic partner with and currently co-leads the firm’s Attorneys of Color Employee Group, and belongs to five Connecticut-area bar associations, including the South Asian Bar Association. She has been recognized as a Women of Power by the Urban League of Southern Connecticut and has authored or co-authored ten articles.
Shah explains that diversity – making sure that everyone has a seat at the table – is ultimately important because clients demand it. “Why our clients are demanding it really goes to the heart of why it is important,” she says. “Our clients and their businesses are no longer homogenous – they are diverse. They (and we) recognize the value in having a diversity of thoughts, experiences and cultures to best meet the needs of consumers and clients.”
Shah wants to tell the women moving up the pipeline to not give up. “There will always be challenges and tough times,” she assures women, “but in time, when you look back on those challenges, you will find that plowing through them was worth it.”
