William B. (Bill) Bardenwerper is the founder of Bardenwerper, Talbott & Roberts, PLLC, and currently serves as Of Counsel to the firm. He founded and managed the firm for approximately 35 years and built a nationally recognized practice in land use, zoning, land development, and related litigation. He has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America for 20 consecutive years and received its “Lawyer of the Year” honors in 2016–2019 for his land development and land use litigation practice.
In 2018, after 35 years of managing the firm, Bill transitioned ownership and day-to-day leadership to John Talbott and Nicholas Pregliasco, who now lead the firm’s land use, zoning, and real estate development practice. Bill continues to serve as Of Counsel, periodically consulting with the firm’s attorneys on selected matters and longstanding client relationships.
Following graduation from the University of Louisville’s Brandeis School of Law, Bill joined the Administration of Louisville’s new Jefferson County Executive, Mitch McConnell, whom he helped elect to office. He remained for the balance of McConnell’s two terms in office, serving as Special Counsel and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs.
After a couple of years with a large Louisville law firm, Bill began a nearly 40-year career with Bardenwerper, Talbott & Roberts, PLLC, the firm he founded and managed for 35 years. He devoted his practice principally to land use, zoning, and land development law and contributed significantly to the economic development and growth of the greater Louisville metropolitan area.
Over the course of that career, Bill represented numerous national, regional, and local builders and developers in projects involving many billions of dollars of investment in business parks, manufacturing and distribution facilities, hospitals and healthcare institutions, shopping centers, and tens of thousands of residential single-family, condominium, and apartment homes. During the 2008 Great Recession, he also represented numerous banks in the repositioning of troubled real estate assets.
Working with teams of experienced lawyers, paralegals, land planners, engineers, architects, and other development professionals, Bill’s practice included preparing a wide variety of real estate documents, quarterbacking proposed zoning map amendments and development plans, and defending against appeals of land use approvals. In the process, Bill appeared at several thousand neighborhood meetings, planning commission and board of adjustment evidentiary hearings throughout Kentucky, as well as nonjury bench trials and appellate proceedings.
Throughout his career, Bill also served on or chaired numerous special committees and task forces addressing land use, zoning, development, and governmental processes. In the early 2000s, he helped lead the local Chamber’s partnership with local governments in drafting a new Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Code in connection with the merger of Louisville and Jefferson County governments. As part of that successful 2003 merger, Bill also served on the County Attorney’s Consolidated Local Government Legal Task Force and chaired its Land Use Subcommittee.
Following the election of Greg Fischer as Louisville Metro Mayor in 2010, Bill served on the Mayor’s Transition Team, drafted a “SWOT” analysis addressing reform of the Department of Planning and Design Services, served on the Planning and Design Services Audit Committee, and later from 2016-2018 served on the Advisory Committee that helped develop Louisville Metro’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan.
For five years, Bill served as a Board Member and member of the Executive Committee of the Louisville Area Chamber of Commerce, now Greater Louisville, Inc. (GLI), with specific responsibility for overseeing its land use, transportation, environmental, and governmental affairs programs. For a number of years, Bill also served on the Board of Directors of the Kentuckiana Regional Planning and Development Agency.
Bill has also been active in the Building Industry Association (BIA) of Greater Louisville, serving for many years on its Board of Directors. In 1995 and 2002, he received the BIA’s annual “Associate (non-builder) of the Year Award,” and in 2014 he received the commercial real estate industry’s annual “Real Estate Achievement Award” benefiting the March of Dimes.
Bill’s professional service activities have also included serving as Chairman of the Louisville Bar Association’s Real Estate and Zoning Section, Co-Chair of its “Committee of the Year” CLE Institute, and Editor-in-Chief of its Louisville Lawyer magazine.
His volunteer community activities have included service as Mayor of the suburban City of Hurstbourne from 1994-2002, service as a founding Board Member of Kentuckiana Crime Stoppers, Board Chairman of the Louisville Gardens Arena, and President of the Hurstbourne Rotary Club.
Bill has also served as an adjunct faculty member teaching land use law to Ph.D. and master’s degree students in the Department of Urban and Public Affairs at the University of Louisville and has lectured widely on land use, zoning, and development law issues. For years, he served as general editor of four volumes of Kentucky Methods of Practice. He has also authored a book on Kentucky Land Use and Zoning Law and chapters on other topics in multiple volumes of West’s Federal Practice Manual.
Bill is a graduate of the University of Louisville’s Brandeis School of Law where he served as President of the Student Bar Association and Editor-in-Chief of the Louisville Law Examiner. He is also a graduate of the University of Virginia, where he majored in government and foreign affairs and served as Executive Editor of the Cavalier Daily.
A resident of South Carolina, Bill is serving his second term on the Beaufort Planning Commission, currently as Vice Chair. He continues to return periodically to Louisville, where he assists the firm’s lawyers on selected matters and consults with longstanding clients. He also enjoys golf, studying political history and world affairs, and, with his wife Gail, travel, community activities, family, and friends.
