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by Doug Brown
For
Virginia Business
December,
2003
Tony
Troy is plugged into Virginia politics and the national
legal landscape like few lawyers. The former Virginia
attorney general, now a partner at Troutman Sanders
in Richmond, spends his days working the legislative
process for clients or wading into major litigation
issues.
Tony Troy |
Tobacco
has consumed Troy lately, both legislatively and in
court. During the past year, Troy, 62, has appeared
before nearly 30 state legislatures, representing independent
tobacco manufacturers. The state’s attorneys general
have been beating up on independent tobacco companies
unfairly, he says, hitting the independents with more
of their ire than the corporate tobacco behemoths. Troy
is jetting around the country, trying to change the
imbalance.
White-collar
criminal law is also a specialty. He’s been involved
with cases stemming from the Arms Export Control Act,
high-profile elected officials, major antitrust cases,
environmental cases and first amendment law, among others.
He argued a seminal first amendment case in the U.S.
Supreme Court about advertising and free speech, which
helped entitle commercial speech to the same first amendment
protections as other speech. He’s now representing
former Nixon administration official Chuck Colson, who
founded a fellowship program in an Iowa prison that
is being sued by Americans United for Separation of
Church and State. “Every year my career has resulted
in a major case somewhere,” he says. “It’s
out there and I know it will come.”
Colleagues
describe Troy as tough, hard charging and possessed
of a brilliant legal mind. “To me he has the greatest
combination of intellectual horsepower, practical knowledge
of government, and ability to communicate than anybody
I have ever seen in law,” says Robert Seabolt,
Troutman Sanders administrative partner. “He can
be hard to work for because he has one idea after another,
and he needs someone else to help him pursue the ideas
to see if they have any legs. He’ll throw out 20
ideas and two or three will be absolute winners, and
the others you have to pursue to their logical conclusion.”
While
Troy is a supportive and loyal colleague, he’s
not someone you want to cross, adds Seabolt. “If
you lie to him or abuse his trust, he doesn’t give
many second chances. I think people who have been on
the other side of him in litigation or in the legislative
process are aware of that and they do not abuse their
relationship with him. But he’s a very popular
partner in the firm. Young lawyers love working for
him … Many of us have grown up working with Tony
and have lots of great stories.”
Like
the time the firm was representing a Virginia politico
accused of wrongdoing, and it found documents that the
government wanted. Lawyers with the firm had discovered
the documents after spending hours in a warehouse digging
through piles of paper, Seabolt says. Troy persuaded
the judge that if prosecutors wanted the papers, the
defense should be able to hide the documents back in
the warehouse, forcing prosecutors to hunt for them.
The judge agreed.
So
on a cold night, as some of the defense team was hiding
the documents in the warehouse while the prosecution
team waited outside, Troy asked prosecutors to fetch
him a cup of coffee and a hamburger. They did. Prosecutors
ended up finding the documents, but Troy’s client
was acquitted.
Troy
has been practicing since 1966, the year the New England
native graduated from the University of Virginia School
of Law. He was attorney general between 1977 and 1978.
Troy,
who is no longer married, lives in Richmond and has
two sons, one of whom is a lawyer in Portland, Ore.
He thrills to the challenge of his high-profile practice,
and gets a charge out of working with “some of
our younger people and associates, who help me immensely,”
he says. “I hope I can pass only a tenth of the
experience they are giving me.”
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