Cozen O’Connor member Suzanne S. Mayes has been named one of the 2008 Women of Distinction by the Philadelphia Business Journal and National Association of Women Business Owners. This honor is given to 25 of the Philadelphia region’s most dynamic women who are making headlines in their professional field and in their community. The honorees will be recognized at the Women of Distinction Awards Banquet on December 1, 2008.

Co-chair of the Public and Project Finance practice, Mayes focuses her practice on municipal and project finance law, including economic development, transportation, government, education and single, multi-family and senior housing. She serves as bond counsel, underwriter’s counsel and borrower’s counsel for a variety of clients, and also acts as special counsel in matters involving the implementation and financing of major capital projects and debt refinancing for public, for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Mayes has acted as bond counsel for state, county and municipal clients in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. She has completed numerous housing financings for state housing authorities and also has experience in stadium financing. In addition, Mayes counsels issuers on large-scale general obligation borrowings, student loan bond financings and airport and toll road issuances. She also has extensive knowledge of various financing structures, including hedging instruments, forward delivery financings, and synthetic fixed rate and variable rate debt.

Admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Mayes is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s House of Delegates, and is a former board member of that bar association’s Committee on Women in the Profession. Mayes was also the recipient of a Special Achievement Award in 2006 from the Pennsylvania Bar Association. She is a former chair of the Tax-Exempt Finance Committee of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Business Section, and is a member of the American, Pennsylvania and New Jersey Bar Associations; the National Association of Bond Lawyers; the Pennsylvania Association of Bond Lawyers; and the Forum of Executive Women. She is also a member of the boards of Mount Saint Joseph Academy, Manor College Board of Trustees, and the Delaware Valley Regional Finance Authority, and is Immediate Past President of the Mount Saint Joseph Academy Alumnae Association.

Mayes is a graduate of Fairfield University (B.S., summa cum laude, 1988) and the University of Pennsylvania Law School (J.D., magna cum laude, 1991), where she was an editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif.