by Rita Frankenberry
for Virginia Business December 2004
Until
Donald E. Lee Jr.’s
freshman year at Hampden-Sydney College, the
idea of becoming a lawyer had never crossed
his mind.
During
that winter, he was issued a ticket as the
result of a traffic accident.
Instead of just paying the fine, Lee decided
to represent himself in court. At the time,
he was living in Lynchburg and was scheduled
to appear in the spring before a Bedford County
judge who had a reputation for being very strict. “I
was scared to death,” Lee says.
Nonetheless,
believing the citation was unfair, Lee spent
weeks researching laws
and court cases. He even got a detailed weather
report of the conditions that existed the day
of the accident. The ticket was dismissed. “The
judge was so impressed that he encouraged me
to go to law school,” Lee says.
Following
the judge’s
advice, he studied law at the College of William
and Mary, graduating in 1971. After a brief
stint as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army,
Lee has spent the past 32 years working in
his chosen field.
During
the first five years of his career Lee was
an assistant public defender
in Virginia Beach. He spent the next eight
years as a partner in the law firm of Inman,
Lee and Olivieri. In 1988, he became managing
partner and head of the real estate section
for the Virginia Beach law firm of Anderson,
Lee and Norris. Three years later, he opened
his own practice, Donald E. Lee Jr. and Associates,
in Virginia Beach. “When you have high
overhead there’s pressure for so many
billable hours, and I just wasn’t going
to make work my total life,” Lee says. “We
had three kids, and I wasn’t going to
miss their activities and the chance to be
a Little League coach.”
Running
his own practice also allows him to give
more personalized attention
to clients. This kind of service, Lee says,
can be harder to offer at a larger firm. Personalized
attention is one of the reasons client Wendall
White uses the firm. White, president of Virginia
Beach-based Professional Realty Corp., is a
real estate developer and builder. “He
answers the phone,” White says of Lee. “Don
is one of those guys you can always call if
you’ve got a question. He’s always
available to answer it. As far as general real
estate, you can’t beat him.”
Lee’s many years as a
general practitioner give him a perspective
that he says other lawyers specializing in
real estate might not have. “Things can
come up in real estate deals or in real estate
closings that could involve trusts and estates
issues, tax law, construction law, condominium
law or even divorce law.”
To make
a real estate deal work, many different aspects
need to come together. “I
kind of look at myself as a conductor of an
orchestra, bringing things together so things
go smoothly,” says Lee.
Real
estate law makes up about 60 percent of Lee’s practice, and he
says it’s no accident that this field
represents the majority of his work. “Real
estate is satisfying to me because it’s
usually the largest and most important investment
people make in their lives, and they deserve
to have an attorney at the closing in case
problems come up there at the table, so they
can get prompt and accurate advice,” he
says. Many times, Lee meets people for the
first time when they buy their homes “and
20 years later, they still consider me their
attorney.”
