Ballard Spahr's Roger Winston and Venable's Kevin Shepherd last night at the Air & Space Museum with 270 real estate and probate lawyers from around the country in for an American Bar Associationsection meeting. Not bad for that size group to have the run of the place; some remember a party ULI put on there for 5,000. Kevin is a former chair of the ABA committee, and Roger is currently a vice chair, scheduled to become chair in '09.

As part of the two-day ABA program, power investor Victor MacFarlanespoke at lunch yesterday at the Park Hyatt, showing a slide of 9 projects he's pursuing locally with partners such as Monument and Trammell, and saying that instead of spending $6 billion in 10 years, as he'd been planning, he now hopes to spend $8 billion in five! MacFarlane made a pitch for combining socially conscious and profit objectives, noting he's had big returns from investments in low-income urban areas that others avoided.

Mayor Fenty's new planning director Harriet Tregoning yesterday morning at Board of Trade with Cafritz CEO Margie Nesbitt. BOT'sRegional Development Task force, co-headed by Akridge's Matt Klein and Hickok Cole's Yolanda Cole, gathered 50 breakfasters to meet one of the real estate community's new favorite people, who said she thinks DC can become a much bigger deal international city.

Also last night, l-r, BRG's Anthony Quintero, West Lane & Schlager's Mindy Saffer, Supply Source's Mike Barreaand Mattie Jackson, Floortec's Debb Ascher, and Herman Miller's Lisa Scala at PS-7's inEast End. Lisa hosts a monthly happy hour for real estate types at different DC venues.

Tina Small, left, and Leslie Braunstein at last Saturday's Arc of Northern Virginia gala. 500 attended at the Reston Hyatt, including a batch of real estate types like Tina's husband Sonny, head of the mid-Atlantic division of WCI, and multifamily housing developer Silverwood Companies' Mark Silverwood and wife Rozanne. Real estate PR maven and CREW activist Braunstein is a board member of the Arc, which helps families affected by mental retardation, autism, and other intellectual disabilities.