Timothy Grooms

Quattlebaum, Grooms & Tull PLLC, a regional law firm with offices in Little Rock and Northwest Arkansas, provides a full range of legal services to individuals and business organizations of all forms and sizes, including sole proprietorships, partnerships, limited liability companies, and corporations. Our clients include Fortune 500 companies, regional businesses, small entities, governmental bodies, and individuals. Our practice encompasses a wide variety of transactions, litigation, regulatory advice, and estate planning.

Since its founding in July 2000, the firm has grown from its original five (5) lawyers to its current complement of thirty-four (34) lawyers and 9 paralegals, making it one of the larger firms in the state. Experienced, highly-talented lawyers have joined the firm from other firms in the area and from governmental agencies. The firm has also hired a number of top ranking graduates and judicial law clerks.

We believe the rapid growth of the firm is a reflection of the ever-expanding list of well-satisfied clients. We recognize that our continued growth and success depends on exceeding the expectations of our clients by providing exceptional service and achieving extraordinary results.

Our goal is to provide superior representation to our clients, regardless whether they are large corporations, small businesses, or individuals and whether they are plaintiffs or defendants. This goal is shared by every lawyer in our firm – from the most junior associates to the most senior partners. This mission includes our commitment to providing service to our clients in an efficient, responsible and professional manner. Our dedication to providing superior representation has led to long-term client relationships founded on mutual trust and respect.

Our philosophy on handling litigation is simple: we use motion practice to frame the issues in the manner most advantageous to our client, and we prepare the case for trial. We are trial lawyers. We have found that the best results for our clients are achieved by approaching cases with the attitude that they will go to trial. Hence, we strive to develop the case fully, to retain the best experts, and to have absolute control over the documentary evidence. Further, we strive to use every technological advantage reasonably available to organize and present the evidence in a way that credibly and understandably conveys our themes and messages to the jury. This level of preparation provides the most favorable results for our clients at trial and, when appropriate, in settlement negotiations.

We are fortunate to represent banks, entities and real estate developers in a myriad of transactional and regulatory matters. Conscious of the time and expense constraints attendant with every matter, we strive to provide timely and efficient advice to our clients who are engaged in business transactions. In this regard we strive to develop a complete knowledge of their business in order to offer comprehensive business counseling and transactional services. Our extensive experience before administrative agencies and regulators allows us to provide informed and tested guidance to clients involved in regulated activities and business endeavors. We are committed to providing our full attention to both complex transactions and those which are more routine in nature – understanding the importance of each to our clients.

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Timothy W. Grooms
Managing Member

Mr. Grooms is a founding member of Quattlebaum, Grooms & Tull PLLC.  He represents banks, health care managers, real estate developers, real estate brokers, and other clients in a variety of transactional matters.  Mr. Grooms has substantial experience in real estate and general commercial lending transactions and has been frequently involved in matters of eminent domain.   He has negotiated hundreds of retail, office and commercial space leases on behalf of major national retailers and numerous developers, landlords and tenants throughout Arkansas and the Mid-South.  As counsel to lenders and developers, Mr. Grooms has experience with Low Income Tax Credit, New Markets Tax Credit, and Historic Tax Credit Transactions.    

Mr. Grooms is a member of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers (ACREL), a Fellow in the American College of Mortgage Attorneys (ACMA), a member and former officer in the state chapter of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).  He serves as counsel to numerous banking and real estate industry groups, including the Arkansas Community Bankers, Arkansas Rural Rental Housing Association, Arkansas REALTORS® Association (including numerous local REALTOR® boards), and the state chapter of the Building and Office Management Association (BOMA).

Mr. Grooms served as local counsel for two large corporations in connection with the construction, start-up and operation and maintenance of two new manufacturing facilities in Arkansas.  Both projects involved incentives from international governmental entities.  One matter concerned the purchase of a facility in western Arkansas for the development of a new paper processing facility by a Fortune 500 company financed through a European conglomerate.  The project is expected to create more than eighty highly-skilled manufacturing jobs at the new facility with a total capital investment of approximately $80 million.  The second matter involved a Chinese company choosing a location in the southwestern part of the state as the site of its first bio-products mill in North America.  The $1 billion investment for the plant is expected to create 250 new jobs and have a tremendous economic impact on the state of Arkansas.

Among completed transactions, Mr. Grooms lists numerous retail shopping center developments, mixed-use horizontal property regimes, apartment complexes (including units providing low income housing), office buildings, educational institutions, hotels, hospitals, related clinics and ancillary facilities, and charitable non-profit developments.  Mr. Grooms serves as legal counsel to Arkansas’s premier sports and entertainment facility, Simmons Bank Arena in North Little Rock.  He assisted with property assemblage and condemnation and later handled all other legal aspects for the Arena, including construction, management, and operational matters.  Mr. Grooms was real estate development counsel for Heifer Project International regarding land acquisition and development of its present World Headquarters and he represented the owners of the present site of the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Park in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas.  In 2009, Mr. Grooms participated in the financing of a new addition to the Arkansas Technology and Research Park in Fayetteville, Arkansas, including utilization of New Markets Tax Credits, and he recently represented the lender and tax credit investor regarding expansion of Arkansas Baptist College and redevelopment of the Chancellor Hotel in Fayetteville.  In 2013, the “Mann on Main” redevelopment of mixed use retail, office and condominium projects went “on line” with the assistance of Mr. Grooms and use of New Markets and Historic Tax Credits.   The premiere office and entertainment complex known as the “Arcade Building” opened in 2014, accomplished in a public-private partnership between the Central Arkansas Library System and a group of private investors, owners and tenants.  This development in the River Market will complement other projects Mr. Grooms represented as legal counsel including River Market Tower, the First Security Building, Third and Commerce and 300 Third, all mixed-use condominium projects in the River Market area of Little Rock, Arkansas.  In 2015, Mr. Grooms represented Baptist Hospital in connection with its new full-service facility in Conway, Arkansas.

Mr. Grooms is a frequent lecturer to title, banking, real estate, real estate brokerage, and construction industry groups and industry regulators.  Topics have included bank and bank holding company regulatory issues, bankruptcy issues affecting real estate, title insurance law and other issues of interest to real estate lenders, contractors, appraisers, title agents, developers, and brokers.  He is a frequent presenter at state ICSC events on lease negotiations for both landlords and tenants.  He has spoken to numerous Arkansas groups, including the state chapters of Building and Office Management Association (BOMA) and the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM), Arkansas Bar Association, Arkansas REALTORS® Association,  Arkansas Bankers Association, Arkansas Community Bankers Association, and numerous other groups relating to development, leasing, and lending negotiations. 

Mr. Grooms was actively involved in drafting the Arkansas statutory landlord - tenant code and authored the state's most widely published work on landlord tenant law, published by the Arkansas REALTORS® Association. 

Mr. Grooms received the highest score on his state’s bar examination in 1984, the year of his admission to practice law.  Mr. Grooms has been recognized by local publications (Arkansas Times; Arkansas Business) and nationally recognized legal directories (The Best Lawyers in America®, 1996-Present; Chambers USA’s Guide to America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, 2003-Present; Super Lawyers, 2006-Present; and Who’s Who Legal, 2016) as among the best lawyers in the State of Arkansas and the nation.  He is rated AV Preeminent® by Martindale-Hubbell.

Mr. Grooms is licensed to practice in Arkansas and New York.

Education

University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law (J.D., with high honors, 1984)
Board of Editors, University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Journal, 1982-1984

University of Arkansas at Little Rock (B.A., magna cum laude, 1981)

Associations and Affiliations

Member, American Bar Association, Arkansas Bar Association, and Pulaski County Bar Association; Member, American College of Real Estate Lawyers and International Council of Shopping Centers; Fellow, American College of Mortgage Attorneys.

Additional Licenses

Arkansas Real Estate Broker (1977-present) (inactive)

Charitable Organizations

Member, Fifty for the Future

Member, Baptist Health Foundation Board of Directors

Dean’s Advisory Council, University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law

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