This story was updated on Sunday, Sept. 6, 2015 at 11:40 a.m.

Richard LaValley, Sr., a well-known Toledo-area attorney, tax expert, educator, and philanthropist, died in his Sylvania home Friday of apparent heart failure. He was 86.

“He wasn’t feeling good for the past few weeks and his heart basically just gave out,” said Dianne Tankoos, a daughter.

Mr. LaValley, who had a legal and accounting background, was the founding partner at the LaValley, LaValley, Todak, and Schaeffer law firm on Monroe Street in Sylvania from 1971 until his 2009 retirement. Before that, Mr. LaValley worked for several Toledo-area accounting and law firms.

Most recently, he practiced in state and federal courts in Ohio and before that in the U.S. Tax Court.

“He was a wonderful lawyer, he was a wonderful businessman,” said Michael Todak, his former law-firm partner. “Dick was genuinely a brilliant legal mind. He was very sharp. He was ahead of his time.

“For those who were younger than him, he was a great mentor,” Mr. Todak said. “He always took a lot of time and effort with younger lawyers. He was extremely successful through the years and it was extremely important to him to share his successes with others. He was a very generous man.”

Mr. LaValley also taught federal income tax at the University of Toledo college of law during the 1960s.

Mr. LaValley was an investor with eight other people in 1983 in a business that ultimately led to a computer software business that was purchased by Microsoft in 1992 for $173 million.

The initial investors put in $40,000 each in a business they called Fox Research. Mr LaValley, who was chairman and director, and another man, David Fulton, later founded a corporation named Fox Software, Inc., which produced database programs, including FoxPRO. The business was purchased with stock by Microsoft.

Mr. LaValley and Mr. Fulton were sued by a Toledo engineer, Delos Palmer, Jr., who contended that he had been unfairly cut out of his fair share of profits by owners of Fox Software and other computer-related firms.

Other shareholders in the original corporation earlier settled claims for $400,000. Mr. Palmer refused that settlement. A jury, hearing the case in Toledo, awarded $22 million, later reduced by a judge to about $13.7 million. The verdict was then reversed by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1997, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.

Among other activities, he at different times had been a trustee of St. Francis de Sales High School, treasurer of Christ the King Church, and president of the University of Toledo college of law alumni association.

Mr. LaValley’s professional memberships included the Toledo, Ohio State, and American bar associations, and American Judicature Society. In 1997, he received the Distinguished Lawyer Award from the University of Toledo college of law.

In 1992, Mr. LaValley created the LaValley Family Foundation, which in turn set up an endowment that funded the LaValley Family Scholarship at St. Francis de Sales. Under the scholarship, up to 16 students each got $1,000 a year through all four years of high school.

“I always thought of him as very brilliant, hardworking, and as a very fair and just person,” Mrs. Tankoos said. “[And] he always was very generous with others. And he was very family oriented. All of us, his seven children, still live in Sylvania. And we all enjoy being close.”

In a 1993 Blade interview, Mr. LaValley said the family foundation created the scholarship because of “a deep commitment to promoting and fostering Catholic education in the city of Toledo, especially in the central city.”

“Education was very, very important for him,” Mrs. Tankoos said. “He was a devout Roman Catholic. He felt very strongly about helping others achieve their goals through education.”

In 2000, Mr. LaValley received the outstanding philanthropist award from the Northwest Ohio chapter of what was then the National Society of Fund Raising Executives.

A Detroit native, Mr. LaValley was raised by his aunt, the late Katie Miller, in Monroe after his parents died when he was 8. He lived in Monroe until he was 17 or 18, when he quit school to enlist in the Army.

He served in East Asia in the aftermath of World War II and was discharged with the rank of sergeant. He obtained a General Educational Development diploma while in the Army, then used the G.I. Bill to attend UT. He graduated magna cum laude in 1951 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, then completed his juris doctor at the UT law school in 1953, summa cum laude.

In 1955, he obtained Ohio certification as a public accountant, and was initially employed in that field after college, his daughter said.

He married Mary Ann Chytil in 1950. She died in 2014.

In retirement, Mr. LaValley owned a winter house in Boca Raton, Fla., where he was a past commodore of the Royal Palm Yacht and Country Club.

Mr. LaValley enjoyed golf. In his younger years, he also liked to fish during summer trips to Canada, his daughter said.

Surviving are his daughters, Dianne Tankoos, Dr. Toni LaValley, Debra Gross, Laurie Thornton, and Elaine Lewandowski, sons, Richard LaValley, Jr., and Daniel LaValley, 25 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.

Arrangements by Reeb Funeral Home, Sylvania, were incomplete Saturday evening.

Contact Mike Sigov at: sigov@theblade.com, 419-724-6089, or on Twitter @mikesigovblade.

First Published September 6, 2015, 4:00 a.m.