V&E Sustains Less Hurricane Damage than Associate’s House
Ara Ayles Hardig, an eighth-year appellate associate at Vinson & Elkins, had a tree fall through her Houston home during Hurricane Ike, but she counts herself among the lucky ones.
Hardig and her family were staying with relatives when a tree fell through the roof of her home and into the bedroom of her 2-year-old daughter, Charlotte. Her husband, J.J., a lawyer who works at a different firm, found out about the damage when he looked at his BlackBerry on Saturday morning and saw that a neighbor had e-mailed a picture. “We were just grateful we weren’t home, and our daughter wasn’t home, because her bedroom was affected the most,” Hardig told ABAJournal.com.
Hardig’s law firm also sustained damage, but it was minimal. The firm lost only two windows in its office at First City Tower, and they’ve already been repaired, says the firm’s administrative partner Marie Yeates.
About 40 windows were cracked and will have to be replaced, including three in Yeates’ office. “It almost looks like gunshots, like projectiles that hit glass,” Yeates told ABAJournal.com. “Those will be replaced next week.”
Most lawyers and employees at the firm were without power this week, according to V&E’s director of communications Mark Curriden. Since so many employees were without electricity or child care, Yeates invited them to bring their kids to work. The firm provided movies to watch and pizza and popcorn to munch on.
“I’m just now coming back from our courtroom, where we have the older high school kids who are running a camp with the younger kids,” Yeates said. “Our high schoolers are organizing games with the little kids.”
Yeates said the firm offered excess space to other law firms and clients whose offices were damaged in the hurricane. No law firms accepted the offer, but some clients did. She did not provide the names.
