IT STARTED WITH UNCLE PETE
Most of Hampton Roads knew our firm’s founder as, “Uncle Pete.” Pete Decker Jr.’s prowess as one of the region’s most respected and successful lawyers was dwarfed perhaps only by his reputation as one the most generous philanthropists and change makers. He was instrumental in the redevelopment of Downtown Norfolk, helped found the Business Improvement District, and was awarded over and over again for his efforts in the community — most notably his work with helping sick children.
In the early 1960s the entertainer Danny Thomas, who was building a children’s hospital that would eventually become the world renowned St. Jude, asked him to help raise the money for it. He said yes, and he kept saying yes for the next fifty years — more than thirty-five of them on St. Jude’s board, several as the hospital’s national head of fundraising, all of it for children he would never meet. He passed away in 2012, but that habit of showing up for people outside the office never left the firm.
And, in 2014 his son Peter G. Decker, III and his law partner Martin A. Thomas, Jr. founded the Peter Decker Children’s Charity, run by local volunteers in partnership with local businesses. And Norfolk Coffee & Tea Co. roasts Uncle Pete’s Coffee in his memory, with a portion of every purchase going to the charity.
A LEGACY OF SHOWING UP
The clearest version of it now is Decker Helps. Every month the firm gives a thousand dollars to a Hampton Roads nonprofit and does not pick the winner — anyone can nominate an organization, anyone can vote on the finalists, and the result is announced on the first weekday of the month. The 2026 list is a fair picture of what this region thinks is worth saving: Western Tidewater Free Clinic, which treats uninsured patients. Hope House Foundation, which supports people with complex disabilities living in their own homes. Paint Pink, which covers the cancer costs insurance will not. Norfolk CASA, whose volunteers speak for abused and neglected children in court. And The d’Art Center and Tidewater Arts Outreach who are supporting the arts and those in need of them in the region.
In 2025 the Cosmopolitan Club of Norfolk named Pete Decker III the city’s First Citizen. He also sits on the boards of the Norfolk Sheriff’s Foundation, the Drug Court Foundation, the Public Library Foundation, the Norfolk and Virginia Beach Police Foundations, the Norfolk/Portsmouth Bar Association Foundation, TowneBank Norfolk, and St. Jude’s Southeast Virginia Board.
Martin Thomas, Jr. has represented Ward 1 on Norfolk City Council since 2016 and has served as the city’s Vice Mayor since 2018. Since 2009 he has taught a class called Life Beyond the Felony, helping people recover the rights a conviction took from them. None of it wins a case for anybody, and nobody here would pretend otherwise. What it means is that when this firm says it is from here, you can go and check.
In fact, every one of our attorneys dedicate their time off the clock to giving back. Each attorney here sits on boards, teaches classes, coaches, and stays involved — from Norfolk to Virginia Beach, Portsmouth to Newport News. In the courtroom, and in the community, Decker helps.
THE MERMAIDS WERE BESS DECKER’S IDEA
In 1999 Bess Decker came home from Chicago talking about Cows on Parade. Her husband took the idea to a breakfast of three hundred Norfolk leaders at Nauticus and proposed the city do the same thing with mermaids, for the nautical heritage. Within months local bronze sculptors had produced a hundred and thirty life-size castings, and artists from across Norfolk were commissioned to paint them.
They were auctioned in November 2000 at an event called Mermaids on Parade, and from there they went out to hospitals, schools, community organizations, storefronts and front gardens. More have joined since. The mermaid is on necklaces and t-shirts now, and on a fair number of arms, and it is the thing that tells somebody from Norfolk they are home.
The firm has no illusions that any of this helps a case, and it has never pretended otherwise. But the symbol of this city started as an idea from the founder’s wife, and that is the kind of thing a firm stays quietly proud of — the way a family is proud of something a grandparent once did.
LET DECKER LAW HELP YOU
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