Laff, Charles A.

Rob Tuchmann is a retired partner in the firm's Regulatory and Government Affairs and Corporate and Transactional Departments. He joined the firm in 1971 and retired in 2011. He is a former chair of the Environmental and Real Estate Practice Groups, and of the Executive Committee at Hale and Dorr.

Practice

Mr. Tuchmann's practice focused on real estate development and leasing, remediation of contaminated sites and on environmental permitting. His unique experience cut across the real estate and environmental fields. For more than thirty-five years, Mr. Tuchmann assisted developers, manufacturers and retailers in the creation, leasing, sale, financing and management of office properties, multi-family dwellings, laboratories, stores and factories.

Recent Highlights

• Leased, developed, remediated and acquired the several buildings which comprise the new 2 million square-foot Novartis research headquarters in Cambridge
• Structured, permitted, financed and sold the offices, laboratories and housing which replaced the former Polaroid headquarters

Professional Activities

For 17 years, Mr. Tuchmann chaired the Central Artery Environmental Oversight Committee, which was formed by the Massachusetts state secretaries of Environmental Affairs and Transportation and Construction, to ensure the timely implementation of traffic, transit, open space and air pollution mitigation for this multibillion-dollar highway project. He also served as co-chair of the mayor's Central Artery Completion Task Force for nine years, a position he shared with the director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority. The Task Force structured the governance and funding of the parks and open space, which lie above the downtown portion of the project. It also coordinates the interaction of the adjoining neighborhoods with the project. 

Mr. Tuchmann is a visiting clinical instructor at the Harvard Law School Legal Services Center, where he mentors students at the WilmerHale Legal Services Center in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. In addition, he chairs the Downtown Boston Transportation Management Association, served for four years as public director of The Boston Society of Architects, is the former chair of the Real Estate Section of the Boston Bar Association and the former president of Project Bread – The Walk for Hunger Inc.

Honors and Awards 

• Recipient of WilmerHale's 2008 Reginald Heber Smith Award for Community Service
• Recognized as a leader in real estate in the 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 editions of Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business.
• Recipient of WilmerHale's "Mentor of the Year Award" for 2007, honoring his dedication to providing career guidance and professional development advice to junior attorneys at the firm
• Consistently selected by peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America (2005-2012 editions) 
• For more than twenty years, named a "New England Super Lawyer" (formerly "Massachusetts Super Lawyer") in real estate and appeared in the 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 issues of Boston Magazine