Remembering Michael G. Charapp By Jeff Kelley, VADA Communications Barrie Charapp Beaty recalls her first foray into her father’s professional world. It was in high school after she crashed his beloved black Jeep Cherokee. “I had to work for him to pay for the repairs,” she says. While the Jeep was never quite the same, she handled filing and remedial work at her father’s law firm, Charapp & Weiss, LLP, before going on to earn a law degree and joining him in practice in 2011. Mr. Charapp served the automobile industry for more than 60 years. He was the son of a Dodge dealer in Pittsburgh, PA, starting out in the parts department at age 13. He worked for his father until he left to attend Georgetown University for law school. Over the course of his own career, Mr. Charapp represented and advised hundreds of automobile dealers and several dealer trade associations, including those in Virginia, Utah, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Mr. Charapp passed away at his Ponte Vedra Beach home in June. He was 74. Friends remembered Mr. Charapp as highly knowledgeable in dealership law and equally as witty, and not one to allow his position or legal opinion to go unknown. He wouldn’t hesitate to unleash a cutting one-liner, and his legal guidance based in his interpretation of state and federal rules formed the basis of a multitude of laws to strengthen auto dealer franchise laws nationwide. If a dealer had a problem, he solved it, Mrs. Charapp Beaty recalls. “I will forever be grateful for the lucky circumstance that allowed me to work with and learn so much from Mike,” says Anne Gambardella, the Virginia Automobile Dealers Association’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel. “My diploma says William & Mary, but I really went to the Mike Charapp School of Law.” In 1996, Mr. Charapp joined attorneys Brad Weiss and Michael Deese to form Charapp, Deese & Weiss, later becoming Charapp & Weiss, focusing exclusively on matters related to franchise law and new car and truck dealerships. Charapp and Weiss grew the firm before joining with Mahdavi, Bacon, Halfhill & Young, a fullservice D.C.-area law firm, in 2022. Mr. Weiss said his partner was “all in” for automotive dealer interests, refusing to ever take cases against them. “We had differences on strategy sometimes, but we always got along,” he said. “Mike was the closest thing I have to a brother.” Prior to his partnership with Mr. Weiss, Mr. Charapp was General Counsel for Geneva Management, Inc., which operated and managed dozens of auto dealerships and franchises under the Rosenthal Automotive name. There, he handled legal matters relating to risk management, corporate and commercial issues, employment, financial transactions and litigation. Ms. Gambardella called Mr. Charapp the gravity that kept VADA’s mission, legal and legislative activity grounded in federal and state law — and the reality of dealership operations. “He was our touchpoint to what really goes on in the stores,” she says. “He brought a practical aspect that is missing from lawyers who just go to law school. I could always go to him and say, ‘I know what the law says, but explain to me what happens in the real world.’” Mr. Charapp counseled VADA for more than 27 years and, prior to his work as a hired attorney, served on its board of directors with Geneva. He was the driving vada.com 7
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