Lawrence H. Framme, III

Lawrence H. Framme III is the Founder and President of PrimeLegal Consulting, a public affairs and grassroots consulting firm.  Mr. Framme is also the Founder and President of Framme Law Firm, PC, a full service law firm with offices in six states.  Both PrimeLegal LC and Framme Law Firm PC are headquartered in Richmond, Virginia.

Mr. Framme received his B.A. degree from Centre College of Kentucky in 1971 with majors in Government and Economics.  He received his J.D. degree cum laude in 1974 from Washington & Lee University

Upon graduation from Washington & Lee, Mr. Framme joined the Richmond office of McGuire, Woods and Battle (now McGuire Woods) and practiced law there until 1980.  In 1980 Mr. Framme joined the Richmond law firm of Bell, Lacy and Baliles and the next year co-founded the Richmond-based firm of Mezzullo, McCandlish and Framme (now McCandlishHolton) where he remained until appointment to the Governor’s Cabinet.  He founded Framme Law Firm PC in 1995.

Mr. Framme’s grassroots organizing activities began in 1976 as a local precinct chairman in Richmond, Virginia.  In the following years he was responsible for citywide voter registration and political organization activities.  He served as Chairman of the Richmond City and Third District Democratic Committees.   In 1985 and again in 1997 he led the Democratic Joint Campaign, the statewide Democratic Get-Out-the-Vote effort in those years.  In 1985 he was elected as Vice-Chair of Development and Organization of the Democratic Party of Virginia and was responsible for the Party’s statewide grass roots organization efforts.  In 1986 Mr. Framme was elected Chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia and in that post was responsible for the overall governance of the party in Virginia, including its statewide Get Out the Vote plan that resulted in the election of
L. Douglas Wilder as Governor of Virginia, the first African-American elected Governor of a State.  In 2000 Framme was again elected Chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia and served during the successful gubernatorial campaign of Mark Warner.  In 2004 Mr. Framme chaired the Virginia primary and presidential campaigns of Sen. John Kerry.  In 2008 he worked in the caucus-based campaigns of Sen. Hillary Clinton in Iowa and Nevada.  He is a past member of the Democratic National Committee.

In 1990 Governor Wilder appointed Mr. Framme as Secretary of Economic Development in the Governor’s Cabinet, where he was responsible to the Governor for the policy and operation of 15 state agencies and authorities.  During his nearly three-year tenure in the cabinet he also co-chaired the Governor’s Commission on Workforce 2000, was named to the initial board of the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park Authority and prepared the Commonwealth’s first statewide economic development policy.   In 1992 he was Chairman and chief operating officer of the Virginians for Progress Foundation, the campaign for adoption by statewide referendum of a historic $600 million general obligation bond issue.

Mr. Framme served on boards of the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park or its Corporation from 1992 until 2004.  He has also served as Chairman of the Virginia Community College System, on the Board of Visitors of Virginia Commonwealth University, on the Board of the VCU Intellectual Property Foundation and on the Policy Board of the Virginia Bioinformatics Center at Virginia Tech.  Mr. Framme is a past member of the Board of the Metropolitan Richmond YMCA and past chairman of the board of the Downtown Richmond YMCA.