Then & Now: Grimsley builds ‘go-to’ financial law practice

Editor’s Note: The following story appeared in the June 21 issue of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal. “Then & Now” is a profile of a past member of the Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 class.

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Rogers attorney Jill Grimsley prefers transactional work over litigation, mainly because there is less acrimony involved. Her job is to work with interested parties rather than competing sides.

“In litigation, you have a goal with two very opposite results,” she said in a recent interview. “I may work across from a lawyer on a deal, but that’s the keyword. It’s a deal. Everybody wants the same result. I think it’s a more positive process.”

For the past 12 years, Grimsley has built a thriving financial law practice in Northwest Arkansas, working for Little Rock-based Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard (Mitchell Williams). It includes project development and commercial finance through traditional bank lending, representing many commercial banks and lenders. She also plays a role in municipal project finance, representing many area counties, municipalities, and authorities for the issuance of bonds for public and private placement.

She said that whether it’s city projects or private development, the region’s economic environment remains strong post-COVID.

“There is a demand for it here,” she said. “I lived through the last [economic] downtown in Northwest Arkansas, and we’re just not seeing it here because we’ve still got such an influx of people. The housing demand is excellent. Knock on wood. I don’t think it’s going to stagnate.

“We seem to be faring better now than we did after the 2008 [financial] crisis.”

It takes time and effort, but Grimsley has become a go-to attorney for many bank clients who call on Mitchell Williams for complex project financing and municipalities seeking an experienced bond counsel.

“You know what goes along with getting older? Experience,” she said with a laugh. “There are the wrinkles that come, but there’s also a benefit. That’s the plus side of being older.”

Grimsley, 45, is a third-generation Bentonville native who returned to the region after getting an education and launching her professional career elsewhere. She is a 2001 graduate of the Tulane University Law School and earned her bachelor’s degree from Texas Christian University in 1998.

Her first job was in Tulsa, Okla., working for the business law firm Pray Walker. She worked there for six years — and was one of the firm’s youngest partners — before accepting a job in 2007 with Mitchell Williams.

The Northwest Arkansas Business Journal recognized Grimsley in 2009 as a Forty Under 40 honoree. Since then, she’s been vice chairwoman of the firm’s transactional practice group and became one of the firm’s equity partners on Jan. 1, 2016.

Grimsley said other suitors pitched job opportunities her way the past 12 years, but she never seriously considering leaving the firm.

“I like this firm,” she said. “They’re very fair with me. They’ve been flexible. They are involved with the community. I can’t imagine wanting to start over somewhere else.”

As a woman working in a traditionally male-dominated industry, Grimsley offered this advice for aspiring female attorneys.

“When you start having a family is the toughest period initially,” she said. “You need a support network around you. It does require a village, whether it’s parents who live nearby, a co-parent or a job that offers some flexibility.”

Grimsley said she was fortunate to have a flexible employer during COVID. She described maintaining her law practice last year from her dining room table, at the same time overseeing what amounted to a virtual homeschool. Her three children will enter grades 4, 7 and 10 next year.

She said the buck still stops with women balancing children and work but wonders if that dynamic will shift after the pandemic.

“Post-COVID, with more [men] having stayed home and taken on some of those roles, I’m curious to see if that will change a little,” she said.

Grimsley is a longtime Scott Family Amazeum board member in Bentonville. She’s also a director of Oklahoma-based Grand Savings Bank, which operates nine of its 12 branches in Arkansas. She assumed the seat previously held by her father, Rex Grimsley, a rancher and businessman who died in a plane crash in August 2016 at the Bentonville Municipal Airport.

Rex Grimsley is the namesake of Bentonville’s newest school: Grimsley Junior High. Jill Grimsley’s middle child will attend the junior high next year.