Firm History
Est. 1883
Floyd Hughes, our ancestor, practiced law by himself in Norfolk from 1883 to 1884.
In the last named year, he took a partner, Francis M. Whitehurst, and the firm name from 1884 to 1906, a period of twenty-one years, was Whitehurst and Hughes.
From 1906 to 1912, Mr. Hughes resumed practice under his own name. It is not known why Mr. Whitehurst’s name was not in the partnership in 1906, but it may have been because of death, since his name did not appear in the list of lawyers after 1906.
In 1912, Mr. Hughes was joined by a brilliant young lawyer whose name has remained permanently affixed to our name ever since, Mr. Braden Vandeventer. He had been practicing in Newport News. The firm name then became Hughes and Vandeventer, and so remained until 1919. In 1919, John W. Eggleston joined the firm, and shortly thereafter until 1928, the firm name became Hughes, Vandeventer and Eggleston.
From 1928 to 1935, the name was Vandeventer, Eggleston and Black, Mr. Hughes, the original figure in the firm having retired and the firm being joined with Barron F. Black. Mr. Eggleston became a Judge of Virginia’s highest court, and the firm name became Vandeventer and Black, and so it remained from 1935 to 1948.
In 1946, Mr. Hugh S. Meredith emerged from his naval service, and in 1948 the name became Vandeventer, Black and Meredith.
Mr. Black chose not to place his name first even though he was the senior member of the partnership. The firm had been known for so long by its English clients as “the Vandeventer firm” that it would have been shortsighted to lose that designation, and, Braden Vandeventer, Jr., then in Germany in the Army, would soon join the firm. Mr. Vandeventer joined the firm in 1948. In 1954, Walter B. Martin, Jr. joined the firm as an associate and in 1956, when he became a partner, the name was changed to Vandeventer, Black, Meredith & Martin.
In 1998, with over 40 lawyers in the firm, the firm’s name was changed to Vandeventer Black LLP.
In the early 1990s, the firm decided to expand into a regional presence. In 1991, the firm opened a Kitty Hawk, NC office followed by the opening of the London office in January 1994, which is aligned with Vandeventer Black’s international heritage. In 2000, the firm opened the Roanoke Island, NC office followed by the opening of a Raleigh, NC office in April 2001, which was moved to downtown Raleigh in 2002. The firm’s downtown Richmond office opened in late January 2005. Also in 2005, the firm closed its London office and opened an office in Hamburg, Germany.
During all these years, the firm has been composed of highly respected men and women, both in the legal and civil fields.
