Robert Thomas Hicks practices in the areas of commercial and civil litigation. Prior to entering private practice, Mr. Hicks was a Pro Se Law Clerk in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division. While the Pro Se Law Clerk, Mr. Hicks interacted daily with all the district court judges of the Alexandria Division on a wide variety of civil and criminal matters. Mr. Hicks’ practice involves both litigation and arbitration of contract and construction disputes, and other business disputes in a wide variety of business disciplines (telecommunications, natural gas, information technology, hospitality, and government contracts). Based on this experience, Mr. Hicks advises companies in a variety of potential litigation matters and regularly represents clients in: the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandria, Richmond, Norfolk Divisions); the Circuit Courts for Fairfax County, Arlington County, Prince William County, Loudoun County, Fauquier County and the City of Alexandria.
Recent representative matters include:
- defending a surety against Miller Act claims brought by a subcontractor on a public project
- conducting an investigation into embezzlement, fraud and theft for a general contractor
- assisting a large travel and leisure company in protecting their trademark from infringement by a competitor
- assisting in an arbitration with World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to stop unauthorized use of domain names
- advising a civil engineering and consulting firm on enforceability of covenant not to compete for current employees
- successfully defending a civil engineering and consulting firm at a trial from claims of conversion, breach of contract and fraud
- successfully defending a natural gas technology company from multi-million dollar claims of breach of contract, conversion and fraud
- challenging an arbitration award entered against an energy company
- negotiating a multi-million dollar settlement for a client wrongly ejected from a telecommunications company that he envisioned and created
- defending a software company from claims of wrongful termination from a former employee
- negotiating a settlement for a software company whose customer had breached the licensing agreement
- negotiating a settlement for a government contractor whose subcontractor failed to perform for a critical client customer
- representing a home builder in litigation and arbitration against claims brought by home buyers
Mr. Hicks has other career experience in telecommunications. Before entering law school, Mr. Hicks was employed as a Business Analyst for MCI Telecommunications Inc. in the company's Corporate National Accounts Division. Prior to joining MCI, Mr. Hicks was a contract Telecommunications Systems Analyst for the United States Department of Energy.