Deborah Mordecai Edwards has been a practicing attorney since 1977. She was admitted to Practice in Jamaica in 1977, and in the State of Florida in 1991. Deborah started her legal career in Georgetown, Guyana with the Caricom Secretariat, Harmonization of Laws Unit, where she worked on the drafting of model company’s, patents, trademark and copyright laws for the Caricom Region.

In 1979 she joined the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) starting as an Assistant Director in the Legal Department and ending as a Senior Director in the International Department. During her time at BOJ, Deborah was counsel to the Jamaica Export Credit Insurance Corporation and the Jamaica Stock Exchange. Through loan or secondment to other institutions, Debbie was also Corporate Secretary and Director of the Legal Department of the Export-Import Bank of Jamaica; Director of the Privatization and Divestment Unit at the National Investment Bank of Jamaica and Executive Director of the Government of Jamaica’s Debt for Equity Conversion Program.

Deborah has negotiated and documented loans and trade finance in the hundreds of millions of dollars for Jamaica with the World Bank, the U.S. Ex-Im Bank, and with the governments of the United States of America, Japan, Israel, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, France, Germany, Hungary, Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, Panama, Libya and India. 

Deborah has negotiated, documented and closed financing for the purchase of ships, military and civilian aircraft, public transport, oil, and agriculture and has negotiated project financing for road and highway construction, water and sewage infrastructure, power plant retrofitting, and acquisition of portable power barges. She was part of the team that negotiated Jamaica's reinstatement under the San Jose oil financing facility with Mexico and Venezuela.

She designed the legal framework for a US $100 million revolving short term trade financing facility between the United States Export-Import Bank and Jamaica and the financing participations of 12 United States Banks and 13 Jamaican Banks. She advised on Government investments and strategies for the privatization of companies owned by the Government of Jamaica, including the sale of hotels, stock in the National Commercial Bank, the Caribbean Cement Company, Jamaica Steel Mills and commercial real estate in New York and London. Deborah has worked on sale and lease back transactions, asset sales, forward sales of receivables, swaps, syndications, participations and many other financing transactions. 

Since 1991, Deborah’s practice in the United States has included the representation of various municipalities, road tolling authorities, and housing finance agencies who are issuers of mortgage backed securities, or municipal bonds for financing the construction and equipping of airports, health facilities, affordable housing, roadways, transit and transportation. She has worked on competitive and negotiated transactions involving general obligation bonds, special/limited obligation bonds and revenue bonds for new issuances, refunding, rate conversions, remarketing of fixed, variable, floating rate bonds, auction rate bonds, Build America Bonds, US Treasury New Issue Bonds and interest rate swaps.

Deborah is Bond Counsel to Miami-Dade County and to Florida Housing Finance Corporation. She has been Bond Counsel to the Miami-Dade County Expressway Authority and to the Palm Beach Housing Authority. 

Deborah has extensive experience in commercial and residential real estate transactions and in the acquisition and financing of affordable single-family housing and multifamily rental housing. Deborah has represented developers in the development of affordable single-family homes funded by various government loan programs and in the acquisition of land for commercial and mixed-use developments. 

Education

• Juris Doctor, University of Miami School of Law, 1991
• M, Georgetown University Law Center, 1981
• B, University of the West Indies, 1975