Barbara Adams served as the Executive Vice President – Legal Affairs and General Counsel of the Philadelphia Housing Authority from August 2011 to April 2016, and as a Trustee of each of the Philadelphia Housing Authority Retirement Income Trust and the Philadelphia Housing Authority Defined Contribution Pension Plan from November 2011 to April 2016. She served as the General Counsel of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (the “Commonwealth”) from 2005 until January 2011. As General Counsel to the Commonwealth, Ms. Adams led a staff of more than 500 lawyers in representing then Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell and more than 30 executive and independent agencies and commissions in litigation, transactions, regulatory, legislative and criminal justice matters. Prior to her appointment as General Counsel to the Commonwealth, Ms. Adams was a Partner at the law firm of Duane Morris LLP in Philadelphia, focusing her practice on taxable and tax-exempt public finance, affordable housing development matters, state and local government law, energy law and campaign finance law. Ms. Adams previously served as the policy committee co-chair on housing in then Governor-elect Edward G. Rendell’s transition team. She is a charter member of the Forum on Affordable Housing and Community Development Law of the American Bar Association, a former member of the National Association of Bond Lawyers, and a member of the Pennsylvania Association of Bond Lawyers and of the American, Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations.

She is a past member of the board and Secretary of Philadelphia Neighborhood Enterprise, a nonprofit corporation affiliated with The Enterprise Foundation, a past member of the board and Treasurer of the Reading Terminal Market, and a past member of the respective boards of the Pennsylvania Association of Bond Lawyers, the Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporations and the People’s Emergency Center in Philadelphia. Ms. Adams has served on a number of other charitable and public organizations, including a term as Commissioner of the Philadelphia Gas Commission, as an advisory board member on the Homeless Advocacy Project of the Philadelphia Bar Association, as a Commissioner and Secretary of the Independent Charter Commission of the City of Philadelphia and as an advisory board member of The Nuclear World Project. Ms. Adams previously served on the housing policy committees of the respective transition teams of both then Pennsylvania Governor-elect Edward G. Rendell and then Pennsylvania Governor-elect Tom Wolf. Ms. Adams is a graduate of Temple University School of Law and a graduate of Smith College.