Bringing more than 40 years of governmental finance and law experience to the firm, James Crawford has joined Taft Law as senior counsel.

As a member of Taft’s Tax practice group, Crawford represents clients as bond counsel, tax counsel, issuer’s counsel, borrower’s counsel and underwriter’s counsel. He serves as bond counsel for various types of bonds with particular emphasis on tax increment financing bonds and tax exempt affordable housing bonds coupled with 4% low income housing tax credits.

An industry leader in legal matters relating to government funding and economic development incentives, Crawford has written legislation including the Indiana Property Tax Abatement Statute, Indiana Hoosier Business Investment Credit – Accelerated Statute, Indiana Urban Homestead Statute and also made critical revisions to the Indiana Unsafe Building Statute and Indiana’s affordable housing property tax assessment statute. He has been nationally recognized for his work at the state, county and local levels of government, including as bond counsel in The Bond Buyer’s Municipal Marketplace (the “Redbook”) for more than 30 years.

Prior to joining Taft, Crawford was a partner at a business law firm, where he provided counsel on legal matters related to public finance, income tax, tax increment financing bonds, tax-exempt bonds, economic development incentives and financing affordable housing developments. During his time there, Crawford created upper-tier investment funds for both affordable housing tax credit equity investments and historic rehabilitation tax credits and has represented the upper-tier fund investments in more than 125 lower-tier development partnerships.

Crawford earned his J.D. from Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law and his bachelor’s degree from Purdue University. He is a member of the National Association of Bond Lawyers, American Bar Association’s tax and government section, Indiana Municipal Lawyers Association member and honorary treasurer of the state of Indiana.