Washington Lawyer - January 2017 - 31


LAWYERS
HEART
HAVE

O

n a bright Saturday morning
in June, over 5,000 runners,
walkers, and their supporters
gathered on Water Street in the
District of Columbia's
Georgetown neighborhood.
The diverse mix of people
- young and old, beginner and experienced runners
- had come to participate in what has become an
annual tradition in the Washington, D.C., area legal
community: the Lawyers Have Heart race to raise
awareness and funds for cardiovascular health and
stroke prevention.
Now heading into its 26th year in 2017, Lawyers Have
Heart is the leading philanthropic event involving the
local legal community and benefits the American
Heart Association (AHA) in its fight to prevent heart
disease and stroke, the No. 1 and No. 5 causes of
death in the United States. To date the annual event,
which includes a 10K and 5K run and fun walk, has
raised over $11 million for the cause.
Lawyers Have Heart was started in 1991 by two
attorneys, Richard Frank, founding principal at Olsson
Frank Weeda Terman Matz PC, and Alan Raul, a
partner at Sidley Austin LLP. Frank came across a
provocative story in the November 1990 issue of the

Running for a cause
Washingtonian magazine - on the cover was a photo
of a man depicting an attorney, tied up and
blindfolded, a cigarette in his mouth, with the
heading "First, Kill All the Lawyers," a take on the
famous line from Shakespeare's Henry VI. The writer,
former criminal defense attorney John Sansing,
argued that the legal profession in Washington was in
decline, with too many attorneys and too few
providing substance to the community. Incensed by
the story, Frank and Raul decided to challenge
Sansing's portrayal of D.C. lawyers.
"I saw that cover and I said, why does everyone hate
lawyers? We work really hard, we work long hours,
and spent years in law school . . . but it distressed me
to see that there was this animosity toward lawyers,"
Frank says.
Jennifer Siler, development director of Lawyers Have
Heart, says Frank and Raul "saw a huge opportunity to
show all the good that the legal community was
doing in the Washington area."

A MOVEMENT IS BORN
Drawn to fundraising for a cause, the two attorneys
decided on AHA as beneficiary. One in three deaths in
the U.S. in 2013 was from heart disease, stroke, and
other cardiovascular diseases, while heart disease and
stroke were the No. 1 and No. 2 killers worldwide,

By Jeffery Leon

according to AHA's 2016 Heart Disease and Stroke
Statistics Update. Attorneys practicing in high-stress
environment are particularly susceptible to heart
conditions.
For Frank, the decision to advocate for heart health
was personal. "I decided that lawyers needed to give
something back to the community, and because my
father had had open heart surgery a year or two
before, I decided on the American Heart Association,"
he says.
Both runners, Frank and Raul decided to start a 10K
run by inviting the city's legal community and runners
for the first Lawyers Have Heart race on May 19, 1991,
in D.C.'s West Potomac Park. Among the most notable
participants were U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials
qualifiers and later Marine Corps Marathon winners
Jim Hage and Darrell General. Over the years the race
has grown in popularity and reputation, with
organizers eventually moving the course to
Georgetown.
"Lawyers Have Heart has built itself as an institution in
the D.C. area running community, both on the legal
side and the running side," says Roxana Hoveyda,
senior director for marketing and communications at
AHA. In 2016 Lawyers Have Heart raised over $750,000
for AHA, a record-breaking amount.

* WASHINGTON LAWYER * JANUARY 2017

31
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