General Counsel of Texans for Lawsuit Reform and Retired Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Reliant Energy Hugh Rice Kelly was Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Reliant Energy prior to his retirement in May 2003.

Kelly joined Houston Lighting & Power Company, corporate predecessor of Reliant, as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary in 1984. He assumed the same title at the parent company in 1985 and was promoted to Executive Vice President in 1996.

Prior to joining HL&P, Kelly was a lawyer with the Houston firm of Baker & Botts, joining as an associate in 1972. He was elected partner in 1978 in the trial department and later specialized in utility regulatory law.

He is a member of the Houston, Texas and American Bar Association and is a fellow of the Houston and Texas Bar Foundations.

A native of Houston, Kelly graduated from Rice University in 1965. Following service as an officer in the U.S. Army, he attended law school at the University of Texas, where he served as Editor in Chief of the Texas Law Review, and graduated with high honors.

Affiliations/Organizations

Civil Justice Reform

In 1994 Kelly co-founded Texans for Lawsuit Reform with Dick Weekley, Leo Linbeck and Dick Trabulsi. He authored TLR’s first legislative agenda, most of which was enacted in 1995. He served as the first general counsel of the group and later as a participant in TLR’s strategic planning activities. He also has taken the lead in fundraising within the corporate legal community since 1994. He was instrumental in founding Texans for Reasonable Legal Fees and in preserving the state’s right to contest the $3.3 billion legal fee awarded to the five Texas tobacco lawyers. He has also been active in the past as a member of the steering committee of the Civil Justice Reform Group and of the board of the Institute for Legal Reform of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Kelly is also the author of a chapter on Civil Justice Reform in a multi-volume legal treatise published by West Publishing Co.

Judicial Reform

He was appointed by Chief Justice Tom Phillips to the merit selection of judges “Committee of 100” in 1988, and to a second merit selection committee headed by Tom Luce in the mid-90’s. In the Luce Committee, Kelly authored the compromise proposal that was adopted by a plurality of the Committee. He has recently taken the lead in fundraising for the pending merit selection effort led by Judge Phillips, the Make Texas Proud Committee.

Kelly was co-founder in 1987 and is currently the senior member of the Committee of 12, an organization of Houston major-company general counsels that meets monthly, originally for the purpose of raising funds and promoting merit selection of judges. In the early 90’s he led the expansion of the Committee’s focus to encompass support of civil justice reform in Texas. This organization now has chapters in Dallas, San Antonio and Austin. In addition to advocating merit selection of judges, Kelly and the general counsel group have been very active in judicial election races

In civic affair, Kelly has served as a board member and officer of numerous civic organizations, including cultural, health care, city improvement, and other charitable and non-profit activities.