68 years of legal practice
SINCE 1953
Our Guiding Principles
Tremblay & Smith, pllc, is renown for its enduring and historic legacy in the commonwealth, charlottesville, and central-virginia areas. our first priority is the satisfaction and positive legal outcome for our clients.
01
04
03
02
An Enduring Legacy
Expert Guidance in all Legal Matters
Transparency for our Clients
Participation in Historic Cases
Established in 1953, Tremblay and Smith is one of the first and longest established law firms in the Charlottesville-area. Built on the reputations of local leaders like E. Gerald Tremblay and Lloyd T Smith, our firm prides itself on its enduring reputation of fair and just legal representation, transparency to its clients, and historic civic engagement.
Our firm excels in a range of legal matters including corporate and business law, personal injury and medical malpractice, and domestic and family law. We also specialize in niche areas of the law such as defamation and eminent domain. We only hire established experts to ensure the highest chance of positive legal outcomes.
Our clients understand that in hiring us, they are hiring a transparent law practice built on creating trusting relationships. From our legal advice to our billing process, we ensure that the client has a well-informed experience with our firm starting from our initial conversation through the closing of their case.
Tremblay and Smith has participated in many historic cases throughout its 68-year history. We have litigated in front of Supreme Courts and governments; we have represented universities, national and well-known businesses; and our attorneys have won awards including Lifetime Achievement awards and Hall of Fame Inductions.
MEEt the founder:
E. GERALD TREMBLAY
E. Gerald Tremblay was a New England native, he served for eight years as a judge in the 16th Circuit in the 1980s. After serving in the Marines in World War II, he graduated from the University of Virginia with undergraduate and law degrees. He returned to military service during the Korean War.
Back from Korea, he started his law practice in Charlottesville. He was active in the community, serving as president of the Rotary Club and the local United Way. On a statewide level, he served as president of the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association. In the 1960s, he actively campaigned for both John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy; the
latter Kennedy was a law-school classmate.
After leaving the bench in 1990, he joined the Charlottesville law firm of Smith, Taggert, Gibson & Albro, which was renamed Tremblay & Smith.
MEET THE FOUNDER:
LLOYD T. SMITH, JR.
Lloyd T. Smith grew up in the Petersburg, Virginia-area. At 18, he joined the United States Marine Corps and served with the 7th Marine Regiment in the Korean War until 1952. He received his B.A. in 1955 and his L.L.B. in 1960 from the University of Virginia. In 1960, he married the love of his life, Ashlin Wyatt, and they lived together in a big old house on Park Street in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Mr. Smith engaged in the practice of law in Charlottesville for thirty-five years until his retirement in 1995. He was a founding partner of this very firm where he primarily worked in business planning and commercial litigation.
He was a founder, chairman and president of Virginia Broadcasting Corporation, operator of Channel 29 TV, and a founder and the first Chairman of Guaranty Bank which merged with Union Bank in 2004. In 1980, he was president of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Bar Association.
Mr. Smith was instrumental in acquiring, and renovating the former post office and federal court building in what would become the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library. He served on the Charlottesville Planning Commission, the Board of Architectural Review, and the Board of Zoning Appeals. Mr. Smith served for many years as a director of the Albemarle County Historical Society and was president in 1982. He organized the Minor-Preston Educational Fund and served as its president for roughly twenty years. He was a director and vice-president of the Associates of the University of Virginia Library, and would be happy at the slightest opportunity to expound upon the appropriateness of its mission for the University over that of the Virginia Athletics Foundation.
He helped organize the North Downtown Residents Association, and founded the Park Lane Poker Club and the Park Lane Swim Club and Friday Evening Philosophical Society. They have all been active neighborhood institutions for decades.
After his retirement Mr. Smith bought a house on the Chesapeake Bay near Kilmarnock where he spent much of his time enjoying lengthy boating cruises. He served for eight years as a member of the Board of Directors of The Foundation for Historic Christ Church in Irvington, Va., doing historic research on 18th Century documents, and published two books and a number of monographs concerned with the estate of Robert Carter of Corotoman and related issues. At the time of his death he was an emeritus director.
He and his wife and children spent over fifty years restoring their house at 620 Park St. in Charlottesville which they placed on the National Register in 1998. He loved to travel the world, especially by canal boat. He had inexhaustible curiosity. His children and grandchildren learned amazing things from his endless knowledge of the world. Highlights were training his children to love the poetry of T.S. Eliot, showing them how to strip paint and restore an old house by hand, and engaging his grandchildren's growing minds with fanciful stories when they were young. He adored golden retrievers. Perhaps his greatest joy in life was a conversation on the porch with family members, whether it was his parents, wife, cousins, children or grandchildren. And an evening talk on the deck of a boat, or beside the pool on a summer Friday with neighbors took a close second.