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An important center for technology and new business, Loudoun County, Va., has been among the fastest-growing counties in the United States for several years running. Thomas Dunlap ’94 has assumed a significant leadership role there as president of the Loudoun County Bar Association, which he wants to become a more personally active and socially responsible organization.
“I think energizing the bar is really important as the number of lawyers in the county has doubled in the last five years and will probably double again in the next two years, so building a strong base and infrastructure is the most important part of the job [now].”
Dunlap is managing partner of Dunlap, Grubb, Weaver & Whitbeck, focusing on complex civil litigation, including patent, copyright, trademark, corporate, and commercial. His cases have included copyright disputes in the United Kingdom and multi-jurisdictional federal patent infringement claims from Taiwan and Israel. Dunlap has appeared before the Supreme Court of Virginia, where he successfully argued the application of the intra-corporate immunity doctrine as it relates to conspiracy claims. He is barred in Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., a number of federal courts, the U.S. Tax Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
An English graduate with a theater concentration, Dunlap was a member of the Lafayette fencing and rugby teams. He also interned as a reporter for the Loudoun-Times Mirror as a student.
“Lafayette gave me the opportunity to explore my strengths and weaknesses,” he says. “I was the prince of needing second and third chances and rather than treat me as simply a student at a faceless institution, Lafayette treated me as an individual. I think it had a lot of influence on my decision to go back to law school after two years in Manhattan (in banking of all things), and further, helped me decide on a smaller law school with the same type of atmosphere. (I did have to get back to Virginia at some point as well).
“Michael O’Neill, Bryan Washington, Lee Upton, and a number of other professors in the theater and English departments made learning enjoyable and thus something I wanted to do, as opposed to something that I needed to do to get a job. Maybe I didn’t choose the path less traveled by, but it has nevertheless made all the difference.”
For two years after college, Dunlap worked in New York for Chemical Bank (now Chase Manhattan), PaineWebber, and Bank of New York in both retail and commercial banking. He attended law school at Washington & Lee University, where he became a member and vice magistrar of Phi Delta Phi Legal Honors Fraternity and continued to play rugby. After graduation, he joined the Leesburg, Va., law firm of Bredimus & Associates, P.C. until the end of 2001, when he and Dan Grubb formed Dunlap & Grubb.
Dunlap is a graduate of Army Officer Candidate School and holds a commission as a cavalry officer. In March 2001 he joined the National Guard and was the squadron nominee for the Douglas MacArthur leadership award in 2004. He is the executive officer for the HHC, 29th Infantry Division (Light) at Fort Belvoir, Va. He holds a private pilot rating, rescue diver license, Military Humvee and M1 Tank drivers licenses, and is a former national silver medalist in full-contact Burmese kickboxing.
He also is a member of the executive committee and board of directors for Loudoun Community Free Clinic Hospital and a board member of the LoudounCares charity and the Northern Virginia Campus of Shenandoah University. Dunlap enjoys spending time with his wife, who is also a lawyer, and his daughter Lindsay Jane.