The 2026 Andrea Pair Bryant Luncheon, presented by the Austin Black Lawyers Association Foundation, honored Travis County District Clerk Velva Price and Kathy Holt Richardson.
Velva Price has been the district clerk for Travis County since 2015. She graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 1986 and represented individuals, governmental entities, and corporations throughout Texas.
She previously served as Austin Bar president for 2000-01 and was its first African American president. She has also served as president of the Austin Black Lawyers Association and the Travis County Women Lawyers’ Association.
Velva has volunteered her time to many boards and commissions, such as the State Bar of Texas, Volunteer Legal Services of Central Texas, the Texas Supreme Court Grievance Oversight Committee, the City of Austin Ethics Review Commission, and David Chapel Missionary Baptist Church.
Kathy is the founder of HR Legal Search and has more than 30 years of experience in legal recruiting. She was one of the youngest, as well as the first Black woman, assistant dean of career services at the University of Texas School of Law.
HR Legal Search has consistently been named one of Texas’ Best Legal Recruiting Firms by Texas Lawyer since 2011. Before HR Legal Search, Kathy founded the legal recruiting firm of Major, Lindsey & Africa and served as the founding chair of the National Association of Legal Search Consultants’ Belonging and Inclusion Committee.
Outside of legal recruiting, Kathy is a certified yoga instructor and wellness counselor. She’s an avid hiker and mountaineer who summited Mt. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Meru, and Mt. Kenya in 2024.
The Andrea Pair Bryant Legacy Luncheon honors the life and work of Andrea Pair Bryant, a founding member of the Austin Black Lawyers Association. Andrea was an active member of the Austin Bar Association, Legal Aid of Central Texas, Voluntary Legal Services, the Catholic Diocese Law Project, and the National Bar Association, which is the nation’s oldest and largest association of African American lawyers and judges.
A recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship that enabled her to study physics in Germany, she graduated from Columbia University and worked as a programmer at IBM. Several years later, she enrolled in Georgetown University Law Center while keeping her day job. After graduating with her JD in 1978, she and her husband, Mel, were transferred by IBM to Austin.
The Austin Black Lawyers Association Foundation is a 501(c)(3) founded in 1973. The foundation provides scholarships to high school seniors, undergraduates, and graduate students pursuing legal careers. The primary scholarship programs are the Heman Sweatt Scholarship and the Virgil C. Lott Scholarship.
The Hemann Sweatt Scholarship is named after the first African American to attend the University of Texas School of Law and was established to assist students with the cost of taking the Law School Admission Test (LSAT).
The Virgil C. Lott Scholarship is named after the first African American to graduate from the University of Texas School of Law and is awarded to a graduating high school student, based on need, to assist with the cost of attending higher education.