IBJ names Taft’s Bob Hicks the Forty Under 40 Alumni Award winner

Attorney Robert J. Hicks’ career path appears to follow a neat arc: Butler University graduate, William & Mary Law School standout, all the usual steps to become firmwide chair and managing partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP. But the real journey was more nuanced. Quite a bit more nuanced, actually.

“When I won my Forty Under 40 award, I wasn’t practicing law,” said Hicks, who was a member of IBJ’s Forty Under 40 class of 2000.

At the time, he was an executive vice president of CIT Group and CEO of RealMed Corp. —  amid an extended sabbatical of sorts from private legal practice, immersing himself in high-level finance work that took him through Chicago, Toronto and Manhattan. It was a fast-paced, cosmopolitan and nomadic existence, but it also turned out to be transitory.

By 2002, with six relocations in five years under his belt (and another one looming), Hicks made a choice that shaped the rest of his career: He came home to Indiana.

Not just to reset professionally, but to put down roots for his kids.

“When my oldest child was getting ready for kindergarten, I decided I wanted to get back to where our families were and where my personal and professional network was,” he said. “I didn’t want to have to move again.”

And he didn’t. Indianapolis had always been his anchor, both metaphorically and geographically. So much so that during all of his yearslong corporate travels, Hicks never sold his Indy home.

“I love the Indianapolis community,” he said.

His homecoming marked the start of a new chapter. One that would see him accomplish many of the achievements for which he’s receiving the 2026 Forty Under 40 Alumni of the Year award. After returning in 2002, he went back to legal firm Sommer Barnard, where he’d worked from 1988 to 1996. In 2008, Sommer Barnard became Taft’s Indianapolis office.

Since taking over the leadership of Taft in 2017, Hicks has overseen dramatic growth both in employee headcount and revenue, thanks to a deliberate strategy of mergers and integration. Under his leadership, the firm has increased its lawyer headcount by 325% (the firm had 824 attorneys, according to the National Law Journal’s 2025 NLJ 500 ranking) and revenue by 575% ($701 million in gross revenue in 2024, according to The American Lawyer’s 2025 Am Law 200 ranking).

“We took a series of local great firms, and we turned them into a national network that operates as one cohesive firm,” Hicks said. “We’re trying to dominate the middle market of law firms.”

It is, in many ways, the same kind of transformation work he did during his interlude in finance. Hicks speaks less about legal doctrine than about systems, growth and momentum. About building something new and pushing toward that goal relentlessly. That spirit keeps him plugging away at problems long after many people call it a day.

“I think success is all driven by never being satisfied with mediocrity,” he said. “My definition of mediocrity is not doing a lot better next year than I did the year before.”

Even today, at 65, with retirement not far away, his workdays typically start at 4 a.m. and last late into the evening. Weekends are fair game, too.

“When you’re in a leadership role, I think one of the most important things is being available, being accessible, being responsive,” Hicks said. “If you don’t respond, everything backs up, and people take that as a message that you don’t care about their problem.”

Though he’s devoted a great amount of time and effort to the office, he doesn’t consider any particular business deal to be his most important accomplishment. Back in 2000, when he was named a Forty Under 40, he ruminated about wanting to someday become a high school teacher. That particular dream never came to fruition, but he’s cherished every opportunity to serve as a mentor.

“Many of the people that have worked for me or were my students have gone on to be great leaders or successful professionals,” he said. “To me, that has to be my best accomplishment.”

That emphasis on personal development, mentorship and opportunity also applies to his personal and philanthropic life.

In 2011, Hicks helped spearhead a partnership between Taft and Ralph Waldo Emerson School 58 to create a robust after-school program designed to provide structure, support and opportunity during the most vulnerable hours of the day. Funded largely through contributions from the firm and its employees, the program has served students and families for more than a decade.

“We built the equivalent of a Boys & Girls Club within a school, and we’ve really affected a lot of school-age kids, inner-city and IPS student lives,” Hicks said. “Our goal with that was not to have them dream about being lawyers but just to have them dream about something professional and productive.”

Opening such doors of opportunity mirrors Hicks’ broader approach to leadership. Colleagues describe him as someone who is deeply engaged, accessible and committed to building systems that allow others to succeed. Under his tenure, Taft has expanded not only geographically but also internally, with new initiatives focused on professional development, inclusion and pro bono work.

Still, Hicks resists framing his career as a series of milestones. Instead, he sees it as a continuum of growth. One that, for him, is rapidly approaching an important transition point: He plans to retire next year, but in his case, it sounds less like an exit and more like a pivot. Hicks has little interest in stepping away from the professional world entirely. Instead, he sees his next chapter as an opportunity to invest more directly in others.

“I think I’m going to look at retirement as a chance for more mentorship opportunities,” Hicks said. “How can I give back to the next generations to help them in their leadership challenges?”

He’s not exactly new to such pursuits. He served as an adjunct professor at Butler University and today mentors young attorneys. But retirement, he suggested, will allow him to pursue teaching with more vigor.

“I think it’s important to me to teach the next generations,” he said. “I think that people in their 30s and 40s, who are [our] next leaders, could learn a lot from those of us that have done it and are interested just in helping them without an agenda.”•