President and Owner, Hicks Resolutions and Ellerbee Enterprises, Inc.
By Jamie Null
By the time he had reached the ninth grade, Elliot Hicks knew he wanted to be a lawyer. The Charleston native, now the president and owner of Hicks Resolutions and Ellerbee Enterprises, Inc., was inspired to make a difference in the world during the Civil Rights Movement by lawyers Thurgood Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston and local attorney William Lonesome.
“As a child of the 1960s, I saw that lawyers were at the heart of social change, and I wanted to be a part of that,” says Hicks. “I wanted to do big, important things.”
After high school, Hicks enrolled as an undergraduate at Washington and Lee University (W&L) in Lexington, VA. Led by a natural fascination with politics, he got involved in student government, where he was elected to the student body executive committee’s freshman position.
“I was the first black student of any class to be elected to that position, and this was only six years after the first black students were admitted to regular attendance at the school,” he says. “That put me under what could at times be an uncomfortable spotlight.”
After visiting friends at West Virginia University (WVU), Hicks found Morgantown to be a better fit, and he transferred there to finish his undergraduate studies and attend law school. A graduate of the class of 1981, he remembers law school as both a challenge and a place filled with motivation and excitement.
“It was such a hybrid group of people attending law school with me,” he recalls. “You sometimes see a lack of motivation in college and even more in high school, but it seemed that everyone in law school was smart and motivated.”
Hicks worked as a solo practitioner and created a small firm with two other lawyers before deciding to raise the level of his practice. He joined Kay Casto & Chaney in 1984, becoming the second lawyer of color in West Virginia to be hired by a large law firm. In 1993, he was elected to the West Virginia State Bar’s board of governors, and in 1998, he was the first black lawyer to be elected president of the organization.
As Hicks’ career expanded, he was awarded other accolades from the legal community, including being named a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.
“Being elected as a fellow might have possibly been the most humbling recognition of my skills,” he says. “Every meeting we had at various locations throughout the country included some of the most noteworthy lawyers and judges in the U.S. When you feel like you have toiled in obscurity for a long time, it is nice to have someone shine a light on you to say you have done your job well.”
In January, the Martin Luther King, Jr. State Commission presented Hicks with the Governor’s Living the Dream Award, which recognizes those who exemplify the characteristics of justice and scholarship; are passionate about the sharing of self, human and civil rights and advocacy for peace; and encompass a sense of civic awareness and public services.
“In accepting the award, I said I would take it as encouragement to do better, rather than a valedictory for anything I might have already done,” he says. “I intend for the award to remind me of that daily.”
Many lawyers feel a professional commitment to give back to their community, and Hicks is a leader among them. Throughout his career, he has been active with the Legal Aid Society of Charleston, Kanawha County Housing and Redevelopment Authority and the West Virginia Bar Foundation. He was appointed to the Higher Education Policy Commission twice, each time by a different governor, and then-Governor Earl Ray Tomblin appointed him to Concord University’s board of governors, where he was the chairman for four years. He has also invested time in both the Charleston Jazz Series and his church.
“I appreciate the great nurturing that my community has given me,” he says. “I look back at the example of the Boy Scout leaders, sports coaches, teachers, Sunday school teachers and many others who shaped my life, and I don’t know how you can’t give back. What is formally known as giving back looks to me like simply living life in an interdependent community.”
