Whether they’re full time employees or in private practice, municipal solicitors in Pennsylvania handle a wide variety of legal work, including litigation, contracts and labor matters. Although a municipality may retain separate bond counsel, the solicitor must take steps to protect the client before a bond is issued.Many municipalities are finding it difficult to balance their budgets and pay long-term obligations such as pensions and post-retirement benefits. Some face a downward spiral of continuing deficits and unpaid obligations. This session reviews the legal challenges that commonly confront distressed municipalities, and how the Act 47 process and Chapter 9 bankruptcy work.This session will examine some of the reasons for issuing bonds beyond a normal project or refunding – such as the recently-created city revitalization and improvement zone (CRIZ) authority and pension obligation bonds – the benefits and drawbacks of doing so, and the legal challenges that they may face. This session will review the continuing disclosure obligations of municipal issuers under SEC Rule 15c2-12, documents that must be filed with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, recent SEC enforcement actions and best practices for municipal issuers.