Walter R. McCabe

Background

Walter R. McCabe's professional life was centered in Boston, where he completed his undergraduate education and later built his legal career. Boston University, where he earned his bachelor's degree, was founded in 1839 and became one of the established institutions of the city.

The Boston legal community in which he later worked had deep roots. The law firm Ropes & Gray, with which he is associated, traces its origins to a Boston partnership formed in 1865 by two Harvard Law School graduates.

Education

McCabe earned a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Boston University in 1983. Boston University was founded in 1839 and was based in Boston during his undergraduate years, placing him within the city's university community.

He then studied at Harvard Law School, which was founded in 1817 and is one of the oldest law schools in the United States. Its campus is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, across the Charles River from Boston. McCabe received a Juris Doctor cum laude in 1986.

During the period of his studies, the school's teaching was shaped by the case method. John Chipman Gray, who taught part-time at Harvard Law School, helped begin the use of this method, which became standard in twentieth-century American law schools.

Career

After completing his Juris Doctor in 1986, McCabe was admitted to the Massachusetts bar that year. He has practiced law since then, and his career has been based in Boston.

He also worked as a partner of S Eggeuno.

McCabe is a partner in the Boston office of Ropes & Gray LLP, a firm founded in Boston in 1865 by John Codman Ropes and John Chipman Gray, both Harvard Law School graduates. The firm's headquarters are in Boston's Prudential Tower, and it now has more than 1,500 lawyers across its offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Its early development included the growth of a bankruptcy practice during the Great Depression and a labor practice after the New Deal.

His practice concentrates on real estate investments and transactions. He represents institutional investors, private equity investors, municipal and nonprofit institutions, real estate operators, and Fortune 500 corporations, handling acquisitions, sales, financings, leases, fund formations, co-investments, and joint ventures. Real estate investment work of this kind reflected the growing role of institutional and private capital in property markets.

McCabe was a past leader of the firm's real estate investments and transactions practice and most recently led its national group in that area.

Works

• article

  • Club Deals - The Convergence of Commingled Funds and JVs

    (Contribution to the Preqin Global Real Estate Report, add...)

    2016

  • Understanding Joint Ventures and Funds

    (Co-authored article published in Commercial Investment Re...)

    2020

• book chapter

  • Playing On the World Stage; Cross-Border Real Estate Investing

    (Chapter co-authored with Garin Muranaka in Inside the Min...)

    2013

• client alert

  • Creditors' Rights Coverage Decertified by ALTA and Withdrawn by Title Insurance Companies

    (Alert on real estate investments and transactions publish...)

    2010

  • Takings to Monetary Exactions

    (Alert on real estate investments and transactions publish...)

    2013

Membership

McCabe is a member of the American Bar Association, the national professional association for lawyers, founded in 1878. The association works on legal education, professional standards, and issues affecting the legal profession.

He also belongs to the Boston Bar Association and the Massachusetts Bar Association. The Boston association was founded in 1876 and is among the older bar associations in the United States, while the Massachusetts Bar Association, established in 1900, serves attorneys across the state.

His membership in the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties connects him with commercial real estate. The organization was founded in 1967 as the National Association of Industrial Parks by a group of owners and developers of industrial parks in the eastern United States, who sought a forum for exchanging information on development. It later broadened to include office properties and dropped the words behind its acronym in 2009.

• American Bar Association , United States

• Boston Bar Association , United States

• Massachusetts Bar Association , United States

• National Association of Industrial and Office Properties , United States

References

• Walter R. McCabe III, Ropes & Gray LLP Firm biography listing his partner position, Harvard Law School and Boston University education, Massachusetts admission in 1986, professional memberships, and publications.
• Walter McCabe III, USA Chambers USA 2025 profile describing his real estate practice, representing investors on real estate financings and investment transactions in Massachusetts.
  2025
• Walter R. McCabe III, Super Lawyers Profile of his real estate practice at Ropes & Gray in Boston, noting his Massachusetts licensure since 1986 and his Harvard Law School education.
• Walter McCabe, Lawyer in Boston, Massachusetts Lawyer directory profile listing his Ropes & Gray affiliation, business law practice, Massachusetts admission in 1986, and education at Harvard Law School and Boston University.