Va. Bar Association installs 2023 president

Benjamin D. Leigh became the 2023 president of the Virginia Bar Association on Jan. 22, the Richmond-based professional association announced Thursday.

With a practice focused on real estate, Leigh is a principal at Leesburg-based Troxell Leigh PC, which he co-founded as Mims, Atwill & Leigh PC in 2002. Before that, he worked with the Fairfax firm of Blankingship & Keith PC.

VBA installed Leigh as its 135th president in its annual meeting in Williamsburg. Leigh joined the bar association in 1997, became active in its real estate section in 2011 and joined its board of governors in 2019. In 2020, he received the Virginia State Bar’s Traver Scholar Award, which honors attorneys “who embody the highest ideals and expertise in the practice of real estate law.”

Leigh, who earned his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Richmond, succeeds immediate past VBA president Victor O. Cardwell, the Roanoke-based principal and chairman of Woods Rogers Vandeventer Black PLC.

VBA members elected four board of governor representatives to three-year terms:

• Nupur S. Bal, serving at-large, Bowen Ten Long & Bal PC, Richmond
• Cliona Mary Robb, serving at-large, ThompsonMcMullanPC, Richmond
• Blythe A. Scott, representing the Tidewater Region, commissioner of the revenue, city of Norfolk
• Bryan Slaughter, representing the Blue Ridge Region, MichieHamlett Attorneys at Law, Charlottesville

 The board of governors appointed two new representatives to advise the board on judicial and government attorney matters. They will serve one-year terms that can be extended for up to three years. Supreme Court of Virginia Justice D. Arthur Kelsey is a judicial representative. Virginia Chief Deputy Attorney General Charles H. Slemp III is a government attorney representative.

Two newly elected VBA officers also began one-year terms. W. Ryan Snow, an attorney with Crenshaw, Ware & Martin PLC in Norfolk, was named president-elect, and Kimberlee H. Ramsey, president of FloranceGordonBrown PC in Richmond, was selected as chair of the board of governors.

Additionally, Patrick Bolling began his one-year term as chair of the association’s Young Lawyers Divisiona group of about 900 attorney members ages 40 and younger. Based in Lynchburg, Bolling is a principal on Woods Rogers Vandeventer Black PLC’s labor and employment team. Ann Petros,vice president of regulatory affairs at the Arlington-based National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions, was selected as chair-elect of the Young Lawyers Division.

Michael C. Guanzon, a partner with Christian & Barton LLP in Richmond, is the new chair of the Law Practice Management Division and will serve on the Board of Governors.

Founded in 1888, the Virginia Bar Association is the largest voluntary bar association in Virginia, with 4,200 members.