New president takes in excess of at downtown regulation business ThompsonMcMullan

Billy Tunner, left, has taken more than as president of downtown law business ThompsonMcMullan from Chris Malone, who served in that role for 20 yrs and grew the organization from nine attorneys to 33.

For the initial time in about two a long time, there is been a changing of the guard at ThompsonMcMullan.

The Shockoe Slip legislation agency announced previously this thirty day period that longtime president Chris Malone is stepping down from that function and his successor is Billy Tunner.

Malone, who joined the business in 1981 and experienced served as president for 20 years, will continue his law apply at the agency.

The 33-lawyer organization has grown from nine considering that Malone took about. He explained that expansion was a move in the firm’s evolution and now is the time to go aside to make way for the next era.

“I certainly appreciated the prospect to see us via the transition from a 1st-technology to second-technology law company, which is an critical changeover in the life of a law organization,” stated Malone, 66. “I’m at a point in my occupation the place I instructed my associates for a when now, my horizon is not the same as theirs and the more youthful people should to get a lot more of a lead on the vision of the agency.”

The changeover took location Jan. 1 following a vote by the firm’s 13 shareholders.

Tunner, 53, joined the agency in 2000 right after stints at Stackhouse Smith & Nexsen in Norfolk and Huff Poole & Mahoney in Chesterfield.

The Richmond native and Collegiate University grad gained his bachelor’s degree from Washington & Lee University and his law diploma from University of Richmond.

While both Malone and Tunner reported they did not have any sort of official succession approach or grooming process, the transition is a purely natural a single.

ThompsonMcMullan’s workplace in Shockoe Slip. (BizSense file)

“I’ve been performing practically future door to Chris. We’ve shared a wall for 19 a long time,” Tunner claimed. “We each do litigation and operate on instances collectively and have coated for every single other. He’s been a mentor to me given that I’ve been in this article.”

He included, “I consider perhaps with no understanding he was grooming me, he was. It’s possible it was not completely intentional, but which is how it turned it out.”

Now at the helm, Tunner stated the firm’s subsequent period is to continue on to improve particular follow spots.

“We would like to get substantially much more deeply into commercial serious estate and historic tax credits,” he mentioned, including they’d also like to grow the company apply. “What we want to do is recruit some talent. We have been a superior landing spot for some incredibly talented attorneys and we have a lot more space in our building.”

Nevertheless most of its staff members are functioning from house all through the pandemic, the agency proceeds to function its key business office at 100 Shockoe Slip and a newer locale in Midlothian.

Tunner, like Malone, will go on his exercise whilst dealing with the president responsibilities. He joked that a buddy supplied an analogy of his twin roles upon hearing about it last 7 days.

“It’s like eating a pie contest where the winner of the contest will get to eat a lot more pie,” he stated, incorporating that he’s honored to carry the added load.

And whilst the initial term of the changeover at the president’s spot mistakenly led some to believe that Malone was retiring outright, he stated he has no strategies to stop practising legislation for the foreseeable long term.

“The rumor of my departure is enormously exaggerated,” Malone joked. “I prepare on getting here for a very good though however.”