Carrie O'Malley Recognized with the First-Ever ESG Trailblazer Award from CREW Network (Commerical Real Estate Women)

09.29.2023

Hirschler is pleased to announce that Carrie O’Malley won the first-ever ESG Trailblazer Award presented by the Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) Network, which honors a member for their significant contributions to their company’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. O’Malley was recognized at the 2023 CREW Network Convention in Atlanta during the organization’s Impact Awards ceremony on September 22, 2023.

“Carrie’s innovative leadership drives real-world impact in all three phases of ESG and has led to her well-earned reputation as a trailblazer on a national stage within the legal and commercial real estate sectors,” said Courtney Paulk, president at Hirschler. “In addition to her valuable contributions to our firm and industry, Carrie has generated important environmental improvements by influencing statewide policy and advising developments that promote energy efficiency on a large scale across the country. She is a driven leader and agent for positive change, and we are proud of her many accomplishments and this well-deserved recognition from CREW.”

O’Malley is chair of Hirschler’s Commercial Real Estate Finance and Investment practice group and leads the firm’s multidisciplinary commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) team, which has experience in 15 of the 33 states with active C-Pace programs, plus the District of Columbia. She advises C-PACE capital providers and property owners on all transactional elements of a C-PACE deal—from financing structures, to real estate due diligence, to negotiation and compliance matters. O’Malley also is a valued advisor for local governments and program administrators during the lifecycle of C-PACE programs and is a leading advocate for the environmental benefits of such projects, including increased inventory of green buildings, economic incentives and deferred expenditures for new development and green improvements, and lower-risk lending opportunities for PACE capital providers that help achieve their sustainability and ESG missions.

O’Malley has spent countless pro bono hours promoting PACE across the country and actively cultivating the PACE market in Virginia. She was a founding member of the 2018 stakeholder group focused on advancing PACE initiatives in Virginia, which ultimately evolved into the Virginia PACE Authority (VPA). O’Malley’s work as past pro bono counsel for VPA helped it to secure program administrator positions with Loudoun and Fairfax Counties, and she remains a VPA advisor today and has contributed to numerous legislative revisions to the Virginia PACE Statute.

Notably, O’Malley has been involved in several PACE funding firsts around the U.S., including the country’s first PACE-funded office construction project (Milwaukee); the first new construction PACE transaction in the District of Columbia and the nation’s first PACE-financed stadium (D.C. United Stadium); and the first C-PACE-rated securitization in the country.

Outside of her environmental impact, O’Malley is also a champion of important social and governance initiatives. She is a past chair and active member of Hirschler’s Women’s Initiatives Network (WIN), whose mission is to promote the development and success of women as leaders in the firm and their communities. O’Malley serves as chair of the firm’s Nominating Committee, which is tasked with selecting Hirschler’s annual slate of board of directors and ensuring that the firm’s board composition is diverse in a variety of ways. She also chairs the firm’s Commercial Real Estate Legal Opinion Committee, which is responsible for the review and approval of real estate legal opinions and education of attorneys regarding legal opinion industry standards and new developments. In the community, O’Malley serves on the board and governance committee of Empowerhouse, an organization dedicated to providing lifesaving sanctuary and critical services for victims of domestic violence and their children. O’Malley previously served for nearly a decade on the board of directors for the Rappahannock Area United Way.

O’Malley is highly active with several professional and civic organizations that contribute to positive ESG impact. She is active with the C-PACE Alliance, VPA, and PACENation, having served on its Summit Steering Committee in 2018 and 2019. In 2021, O’Malley was the chair of Hirschler’s Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project 20-Year Retrospective Review Project for the McAlister Wrongful Conviction Case. In the community, she serves as a referral attorney and volunteer for CancerLINC (previously the Legal Information Network for Cancer) and is a founding and active member of the Women and Girls Fund for The Community Foundation of the Rappahannock River Region.

O’Malley earned her law degree from the University of Richmond School of Law while in a joint program to earn her MBA from the Richard S. Reynolds Graduate School of Business at the University of Richmond—she completed the standard four-year, JD-MBA program in only three years of study. O’Malley earned her undergraduate degree from the E. Claiborne Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond.