Style Weekly Names Two Hunton Andrews Kurth Associates Among Top 40 Under 40

Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP is pleased to announce that energy litigation associates Josh Hanbury and Brian Wright have been named to Style Weekly’s Top 40 Under 40 for the class of 2020. The list features “Richmond's doers, changers, and dynamic leaders” who were evaluated based on their innovation and achievements along with a strong emphasis on their community service and volunteer work.

Since 2010, Hanbury has dedicated over 1,000 hours to helping low-income tenants with housing disputes through Legal Aid Justice Center and Hunton Andrews Kurth’s Church Hill Neighborhood Pro Bono office. Hanbury has obtained favorable settlements in the thousands of dollars for wrongfully evicted tenants, successfully defended tenants against retaliatory and unfounded eviction attempts and reached dozens of favorably negotiated resolutions for his clients. Building on his extensive experience with housing law in the community, Hanbury recently led efforts to build the volunteer corps for Richmond’s Eviction Diversion Program. In response to Richmond’s having the second most evictions of any large city in the country, the program matches qualifying tenants with volunteers serving as third-party neutrals to negotiate payment plans as well as grant funds to help pay overdue rent. Through the work of numerous volunteers recruited and trained by Hanbury, the program has helped dozens of Richmond tenants avoid eviction and eliminate enduring stains on their record. He is a creative and solutions-driven litigation associate with a talent for managing clients’ needs in complex litigation. In particular, clients from the financial services, environmental, and products manufacturing sectors rely on Hanbury’s agility and process management skills to guide them through all facets of discovery and ESI governance.

A former law clerk in federal district court, Wright is an experienced trial attorney who enjoys making his clients’ cases in courtrooms and other forums. Over the course of eight years representing tenants in Richmond City, Chesterfield County, and Henrico County as part of his pro bono practice, Wright has kept dozens of families facing eviction in their apartments and secured thousands of dollars in damages for wrongfully withheld security deposits, unlawful evictions, and landlords’ failure to make necessary housing repairs. In 2019, Wright began a one-year term as the housing-law “champion” for the Greater Richmond Bar Foundation-Central Virginia Legal Aid Society’s Triage program, for which he recruits, trains, and mentors other pro bono attorneys for housing cases. Upon request, he agreed to extend his term as champion into 2021. Wright has dedicated more than 600 hours to housing and pro bono matters during the last three calendar years.

You can find the feature on both attorneys here. For a full list of honorees, read “Top 40 Under 40,” Style Weekly, October 27, 2020.