create 'fake / virtual page' (like a page being in a folder), shows in url

Yeah just make a new top level page named “team-view” then make some pages which have the top level page as the parent. https://lakeoswegoattorney.com/top-level-page-name/child-page/

Thanks and that makes perfect sense unfortunately I do not have, nor do I want, content at https://example.com/top-level-page-name

I really only want /top-level-page-name to be in the url like a folder holding pages in a hand-coded site.

Use categories and set your permalinks to be /category/post-name perhaps?

Or do you specifically need this with pages? I can’t quite tell (categories don’t work with pages by default)

Or do you specifically need this with pages? I can’t quite tell (categories don’t work with pages by default)

The intent was to always use pages. Sorry I can’t help you help me.

You do not really need content on https://example.com/top-level-page-name it can just be blank. You could even have a redirect on that page so other people can not access or see it.
add this to your header.php

<?php if($post->ID==ID-NUMBER-OF-top-level-page-name){
header( 'Location: https://example.com/top-level-page-name/child-page/' ) ;
}

And because php is server side no one will ever know or see the redirect