The Legal Elite
Top Real Estate / Construction Lawyer
William A. Walsh Jr.
Hunton & Williams

by Page B. Melton

Talk to William A. Walsh Jr. about what he does for a living and it’s not too hard to figure out why his peers named him the state’s top real estate lawyer. While real estate law might conjure up images of endless documents and intricate financing deals, Walsh has a decidedly different view. When he envisions a project, he sees the people who’ll be working, living, thriving in it.

Take the new student housing project he’s working on for Virginia Commonwealth Univers-ity. As chairman of the VCU Real Estate Foundation, Walsh helps secure properties for the school’s ever-growing urban Richmond campus. As he watches a new dorm complex going up on a downtown lot, he talks animatedly about students living and studying in suites, strolling next door to exercise, parking their cars safely in a deck nearby. He’s pointing to a shell of a building, and in the dust and steel, he sees these people.

"It’s nice to look ahead and see a tangible project," says Walsh, who heads the real estate division for Hunton & Williams. He ticks off the pluses: adding new development to a strategic city block, rehabilitating an area a private developer might not embrace, giving VCU room to grow. The more he talks, the more he makes you see it, too.

His ability to bring a project to life even in the planning stages hasn’t been lost on VCU. Paul Timmreck, VCU’s vice president for finance and administration, appreciates Walsh’s view beyond mere bricks and mortar, coupled with his perspective as a parent: Walsh’s daughter studies biology at VCU. "Bottom line," says Timmreck, "Bill’s leadership is invaluable in taking VCU to the next level."

Walsh didn’t always see himself in real estate law. As an economics major at the University of Maryland, Walsh initially considered pursuing an MBA. But working for a developer whet his appetite for real estate and law. After a summer clerk’s job at Hunton & Williams and a law degree from the University of Richmond, he joined the firm. One of his proudest accomplishments was being named a partner in 1985.

While he handles everything from zoning to debt restructuring, Walsh seems to have an affinity for the deals that make a mark. Another Richmond project, the Riverview Center complex for Crestar Bank, now SunTrust, brought new construction to a sagging section of the city. For the bank, it meant 550,000 square feet of office space. For Walsh, it meant lifting an area of town that needed it.

"I really believe in revitalizing the city," says Walsh, who says he likes to drive around, pointing out projects he’s worked on to his daughter and 16-year-old son. "At the end of the day we will have built something that will be positive in the community and that will help people."

For someone who takes a lot of pride in what he does, Walsh is pained that the legal profession isn’t held in higher esteem. Lawyer jokes are tough for a man who thinks the most important thing about his job is making sure everyone involved in a deal walks away satisfied. "The only good transaction," Walsh says, "is the one that’s good for both parties."

A bigger marketplace for real estate transactions poses one of the greatest challenges and opportunities to his area of law. Again, it’s all about the client. "People once thought real estate was local. Now it’s global." Buy a building in London, Paris or Mexico and the "the challenge is to represent the client as effectively as if it was in Richmond." Within his firm, he’d like to expand mentoring programs for young lawyers and put more emphasis on professional development for paralegals.