Our dear friend, colleague and partner, Paul W. "Pete" Hoover, Jr., passed away on Saturday, December 19, 2009. His funeral will be at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, December 23, 2009, and our offices will close that day.

Mr. Hoover was born in Little Rock. He attended Vanderbilt University and graduated from Little Rock University with his Bachelor of Science degree in 1965. Mr. Hoover graduated from the University of Arkansas School of Law in 1969, where he served on the editorial board of the Arkansas Law Review. He received his LL.M. in Taxation from New York University in 1970. He was admitted to the Arkansas bar in 1969. Before joining Williams & Anderson in 2000, Mr. Hoover practiced law in Little Rock for 30 years, primarily with the firms of Hoover, Jacobs & Story and Giroir, Gregory, Holmes & Hoover.

Mr. Hoover had extensive experience in tax and banking law, having served as regular outside counsel to Savers Federal Savings & Loan Association for a number of years. Mr. Hoover was general counsel to Metropolitan National Bank, the largest independently owned bank in Arkansas. He also served Metropolitan as a member of its Board of Directors and sat on its trust committee. In the area of real estate development, Mr. Hoover was the lead lawyer in the development and construction of the Little Rock Convention Center and Arkansas’ Excelsior Hotel, now Little Rock’s Peabody Hotel. He at one time or another represented the lender or the developer for most of the larger real estate projects in the city and state. He worked with the City of San Antonio, Texas with regard to its Hemisphere site and with High Point, North Carolina and Fort Wayne, Indiana with regard to their hotel and convention center sites.

Mr. Hoover was a member of the Pulaski County, Arkansas and American Bar Associations and served on the Investment Committee for the Arkansas Bar Association. He was listed in Best Lawyers in America under Corporate Law and Real Estate Law; and in Chambers USA as a “Leader” in the fields of Corporate/Commercial and Real Estate Law. He served on the Boards of Directors of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Foundation Fund Board, the Arkansas Prostate Cancer Foundation, and the Little Rock Visitor Foundation. Mr. Hoover was a member of Little Rock's Fifty for the Future.

Mr. Hoover was a devoted duck hunter. He is survived by his wife, Barbara, and daughter, who also is a lawyer. Mr. Hoover was a long-time member of Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church, where he served as a member of its Board of Trustees, the Board of Stewards as well as numerous committees.

Vanderbilt University

University of Arkansas School of Law

New York University

Metropolitan National Bank

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

Arkansas Prostate Cancer Foundation

Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church