Lifetime Achievers 2009: George Hettrick
George Hettrick, Hunton & Williams
The American Lawyer
By Francesca Heintz
September 01, 2009
George Hettrick spent 25 years hammering out financing agreements and arranging new capital for clients at Richmond's Hunton & Williams. A top corporate finance partner, Hettrick worked mostly with Virginia Electric and Power Company, one of the firm's biggest clients at the time. But as his career flourished, his personal life faltered.
"As my career went on, it became clear to me that I had a serious drinking problem and it continued to erode the quality of my life," Hettrick says. In 1989 he entered an alcoholism treatment program. After successfully completing rehab, Hettrick was approached by then–managing partner W. Taylor Reveley III and Thurston Moore, who was being groomed to succeed Reveley. "They wanted to institutionalize a pro bono practice at Hunton and asked me if I would take it on," says Hettrick. He became the chair of the firm's community service committee, devoting his practice fully to pro bono work.
Hettrick began by asking local judges, law school administrators, and others what kind of legal needs existed. An Episcopal priest in Church Hill, one of Richmond's poorest neighborhoods, recommended opening a community pro bono office, an idea that struck Hettrick as a way to attract lawyers to pro bono work.
Hunton's Church Hill office opened in June 1990 with Hettrick as managing partner. It now has more than 90 Hunton lawyers on its rotating schedule; they serve neighborhood residents whose income is too high to qualify for legal aid. The office focuses primarily on family law, landlord-tenant issues, and guardianships.
Encouraged by the positive response to the Church Hill office, Hettrick established pro bono committees in 14 Hunton offices. Led by Hettrick, the firm also formed a partnership with the University of Virginia School of Law in 2005, opening a pro bono office staffed by Hunton volunteers and law school students who work with domestic violence victims and asylum seekers. "I don't do the big-headline, high-impact cases. I just make the judgment that these people need help, and they're not going to get it if we don't do it," says Hettrick, who still does most of the Church Hill office's intake work. "It's the age-old adage that in giving, we receive."
Outside the firm, Hettrick, 69, spurs Richmond's lawyers to view pro bono as an integral part of their practices. He revamped the Central Virginia Bar Foundation, which had been founded as a vehicle for lawyers to make tax-deductible contributions for judge's portraits, into an organization dedicated to pro bono. The newly named Greater Richmond Bar Foundation's biggest program is a clearinghouse that provides pro bono legal services to nonprofits.
"George has developed a reputation in Richmond as a person you can call on if you need help," says John Oakey, Jr., a retired McGuireWoods partner who works closely with Hettrick at the bar foundation. "One thing he told me years ago was that he didn't care who gets credit for the work as long as it's done properly. And George makes sure that happens."
