When Elliot Hicks graduated from the West Virginia University law school in 1981 and started practice in a downtown Charleston storefront, he never dreamed he'd wind up working for one of the state's most prestigious law firms in a classy office overlooking the river. Big-time firms just didn't hire blacks.

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"We heard so much about Thurgood Marshall. It seemed like law was the way things were getting done.�

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But success sometimes thumbs its nose at long odds. A trial lawyer, he spent 16 years with Kay Casto & Chaney and just marked his first anniversary with Spilman Thomas & Battle.

He hopes to bring more black lawyers to Charleston through the West Virginia Diversity Network, a new group formed to create social interaction for professional minorities.

He's an obvious role model for the aspiring black lawyer: tall, suave, well-spoken and self-assured. Along with his Diversity Network, he might try posing for a "We Want You" poster.

"I grew up on the West Side, on Second Avenue. We had some diversity there that we don't have now. It was a great place to grow up because you got to see a lot of different people and family situations, a great preparation for life in general.

"One thing I've always loved about West Virginia is that it's a live-and-let-live kind of place. People seem to come from more common means than other places. I didn't find racism in my neighborhood.

"But I couldn't go to Rock Lake Pool. That was the first time I heard about racism and came to understand that it was a force. My parents told me in a straightforward fashion the reason I couldn't go there. With my children being biracial, I have to deal now with making them understand those things, and in a bit more complicated way.

"One of the ways racism showed itself to me was when I got to junior high and some of the black kids were a little angry with me because I had so many white friends. They thought that was some sort of betrayal. It was tough to deal with.

"I wanted to be a lawyer ever since the ninth grade. William Lonesome was a lawyer here in town. He dressed beautifully and had wonderful cars. It was good to see a man who was doing well. But also, this was in the heart of the civil rights movement, and I realized that lawyers could be on the forefront of change. We heard so much about Thurgood Marshall, and it seemed like law was the way things were getting done.

"My parents never made it seem like there were any barriers to going to college. Eventually, I chose Washington & Lee because it was close and had a good reputation. They treated me well when I went there for a scholarship weekend. Being a men's school, on scholarship weekend, they gave us opportunities to see the women's schools, as if women were a regular part of the campus. When I got there, I came to realize they weren't giving out cars to go see girls every weekend.

"When I got there in 1974, they had only had black students on campus for about eight years. It was like they had just finished fighting the Civil War 10 years before. The Civil War was a history thing for me, not a current event. Things were much more stratified in Virginia. I came to appreciate what I had here more.

"I had the worst grades I'd ever heard of my freshman year. I finally righted the ship and learned how to study. I decided for the second year, I was going to stay at Washington & Lee. But I went to a homecoming game at WVU, and I saw more women in my section of the stands than they had in the whole town of Lexington. No women were a part of my social circle there.

"That's not how I wanted to spend my college years. I knew law school was going to be a challenge. If I was going to have a fun college experience, I'd probably better get that done in those two years. So I transferred to West Virginia.

When Elliot Hicks graduated from the West Virginia University law school in 1981 and started practice in a downtown Charleston storefront, he never dreamed he'd wind up working for one of the state's most prestigious law firms in a classy office overlooking the river. Big-time firms just didn't hire blacks.

As he struggled to build a career, he never imagined he would collect the credentials that fill his resume today. President of the West Virginia State Bar? That was pie in the sky.

But success sometimes thumbs its nose at long odds. A trial lawyer, he spent 16 years with Kay Casto & Chaney and just marked his first anniversary with Spilman Thomas & Battle.

He hopes to bring more black lawyers to Charleston through the West Virginia Diversity Network, a new group formed to create social interaction for professional minorities.

He's an obvious role model for the aspiring black lawyer: tall, suave, well-spoken and self-assured. Along with his Diversity Network, he might try posing for a "We Want You" poster.

"I grew up on the West Side, on Second Avenue. We had some diversity there that we don't have now. It was a great place to grow up because you got to see a lot of different people and family situations, a great preparation for life in general.

"One thing I've always loved about West Virginia is that it's a live-and-let-live kind of place. People seem to come from more common means than other places. I didn't find racism in my neighborhood.

"But I couldn't go to Rock Lake Pool. That was the first time I heard about racism and came to understand that it was a force. My parents told me in a straightforward fashion the reason I couldn't go there. With my children being biracial, I have to deal now with making them understand those things, and in a bit more complicated way.

"One of the ways racism showed itself to me was when I got to junior high and some of the black kids were a little angry with me because I had so many white friends. They thought that was some sort of betrayal. It was tough to deal with.

"I wanted to be a lawyer ever since the ninth grade. William Lonesome was a lawyer here in town. He dressed beautifully and had wonderful cars. It was good to see a man who was doing well. But also, this was in the heart of the civil rights movement, and I realized that lawyers could be on the forefront of change. We heard so much about Thurgood Marshall, and it seemed like law was the way things were getting done.

"My parents never made it seem like there were any barriers to going to college. Eventually, I chose Washington & Lee because it was close and had a good reputation. They treated me well when I went there for a scholarship weekend. Being a men's school, on scholarship weekend, they gave us opportunities to see the women's schools, as if women were a regular part of the campus. When I got there, I came to realize they weren't giving out cars to go see girls every weekend.

"When I got there in 1974, they had only had black students on campus for about eight years. It was like they had just finished fighting the Civil War 10 years before. The Civil War was a history thing for me, not a current event. Things were much more stratified in Virginia. I came to appreciate what I had here more.

"I had the worst grades I'd ever heard of my freshman year. I finally righted the ship and learned how to study. I decided for the second year, I was going to stay at Washington & Lee. But I went to a homecoming game at WVU, and I saw more women in my section of the stands than they had in the whole town of Lexington. No women were a part of my social circle there.

"That's not how I wanted to spend my college years. I knew law school was going to be a challenge. If I was going to have a fun college experience, I'd probably better get that done in those two years. So I transferred to West Virginia.

"We had diploma privilege at that time, which meant that if you went to school at West Virginia, you didn't have to pass the Bar exam. It was $250 a semester, and no Bar exam. So that made my choice pretty easy.

"Fresh out of law school, Mr. Lonesome promised me a job. The description was glowing, but the reality was not what it was made out to be. My office was in a small library, and I had no telephone. After about two months, Gene Hoyer, an absolute saint to me, gave me an opportunity to open my own one-room office at 1033 Quarrier. He also got me work with the Legislature.

"I did my own typing. I had a big horsy answering machine that I used if I had the nerve to go to lunch. It was slow going. But I was right down below two Legal Aid agencies, and anybody who had too much money to be taken care of by Legal Aid, they would send to me. And I had a lot of court-appointed cases and a lot of divorces. My side of the divorce was usually the one who couldn't pay, but it gave me a lot of experience.

"About 1984, I really wanted to upgrade my practice. I had money to rent one of the offices Gene Hoyer owned at 922 Quarrier. I had a secretary this time. I wanted to get away from court-appointed and domestic cases. I decided I needed to advertise.

"Advertising was in its infancy then. I put a small one-column ad in the phone book, and it had red letters, another innovation of the times. I was afraid if I advertised more, the law firms that didn't advertise at that time wouldn't touch me. I guess I was circumspect enough in my ad to be accepted, because I decided to go to work with Kay Casto & Chaney.

"I call myself a journeyman trial lawyer. I was able to develop that in that firm. I do about any kind of trial work. There's a real excitement and competition that comes from being in court that's hard to find at this age. I don't play basketball anymore.

"The most interesting cases to me are the smaller ones. One was for the dragway in Mason County. Neighbors wanted to shut that down. They said it was a noise nuisance. They had such a placid place there, and they wanted to keep it that way. They were right on Route 35. When we had a jury view the site, almost on cue, about nine tractor-trailers came by. You couldn't hear the judge or anybody talking, and it showed that these people were subjected to the same noise all the time, and that my client's dragway didn't change that at all.

"I was at Kay Casto for 16 years and was State Bar president at the end of that time. I wanted to stretch out and do something fresh. I went to work for Allen Guthrie McHugh for two years.

"I started doing some asbestos work. I made friends with somebody from Hawkins and Parnell, an Atlanta law firm. They asked me to assemble and manage an office here. I did that for five years. I always likened asbestos work to 1,000 men trying to decide how to push a barge out of the sand. Everything is a collective action. There's not a premium on individual lawyering, and I never had the attention span for cases that lasted that long. So I spoke to the people here at Spilman and was able to find a place here one year ago.

"It's hard for professional firms to recruit minorities to Charleston. They come here thinking they are going to find Atlanta. Spilman has put out some seed money for a West Virginia Diversity Network for minority professionals. We can host a Web site and create a network where people can get together and talk about things going on here. We're hoping to have our launch event the last part of February.

"In law school, we had the largest graduating class of black lawyers at the time - seven. There were no black lawyers working with majority firms. Most of us didn't even aspire to interview with the large firms. We didn't think it was a realistic possibility that we would be hired.

"That's changing. You are seeing more black lawyers. But the numbers still aren't that great. When you look at some of the biggest state firms, I don't know that any have more than three. But you do see black lawyers in prosecutor's offices, in plaintiff practices and public defenders offices, and a lot of black lawyers have taken their talent to government work.

"We hope to make it better. The Mountain State Bar is a black lawyers association that was started when the West Virginia Bar Association didn't accept black lawyers. We provide a fellowship to minority law students, and we're moving toward favoring students who are likely to come back and provide services here.

"Another thing I want to do is work with West Virginia State to help that university realize its destiny. There are things that the university can do to educate across socioeconomic levels to bring people up and put them in the race."

To contact staff writer Sandy Wells, call 348-5173 or e-mail san...@wvgazette.com.