“I was attracted to the firm because it is such an excellent cultural fit for me and my practice area. BoyarMiller has a respected real estate practice and I enjoy working with developers and land planners to help them achieve their visions.”
– Hilary Tyson, Shareholder, Business Group
Real estate was often a topic of conversation when Hilary Tyson was growing up, so perhaps she was meant to focus her practice on commercial real estate. Her family involvement in real estate spans generations. Her father is an architect and land planner, her mother is an architect involved in residential design and development. One grandfather was an engineer and the other was an architect.
“Guess you could say it was the family business,” said Hilary. “During summers, I would work for my father organizing blue prints and mylars for various projects, and also researching oil and gas mineral interests in the court house deed records.” A fourth-generation Houstonian on her father’s side and first-generation American on her Swiss mother’s side, Hilary attended undergraduate college in the Austin area where she met her husband, Warren, before living in Berlin for a year to hone her German conversational skills. She attended law school in Chicago and Warren and Hilary were married in Houston during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. After law school, Hilary and Warren moved to Dallas, and they returned to Houston in 2015 when Hilary joined BoyarMiller. They have two children, Sofia is 10 and Louis is six years old.
“I was attracted to the firm because it is such an excellent cultural fit for me and my practice area,” said Hilary, who was elected shareholder in 2016. “BoyarMiller has a respected real estate practice and I enjoy working with developers and land planners to help them achieve their visions.” Hilary extends that passion with her long-time involvement in the Urban Land Institute. She currently chairs a committee for ULI’s UrbanPlan, a project-based curriculum for high school and university students to learn about the practical aspects of community redevelopment.
“ULI worked with the University of California at Berkeley to develop a program that inspires and teaches students about community development,” said Hilary. “My committee is working with one high school right now and the students participate in different areas to advance critical thinking and planning skills required for a well thought-out community. It is a hands-on learning program that informs and, I hope, motivates these students.”
The interest in real estate continues with Hilary’s siblings whose professions include civil engineering, finance and land planning.
“We joke among ourselves that we can start our own real estate development company because so many of the necessary disciplines are represented in our family,” said Hilary. “That’s not going to happen, but I think we will all stay involved in real estate for many years to come.”
