Richard Gump

Richard Gump (1918-2003) was a Tulsa, Oklahoma-born attorney and former FBI Special Agent who founded the Dallas, Texas, law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in 1945 with fellow former FBI agent Robert Strauss. Gump's family relocated to Dallas in 1926. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Texas in 1939. Gump took his law degree in 1940, also from UT. He joined the FBI after graduating from law school, resigning from the Bureau at the end of World War II.

Richard Gump's primary area of practice was labor and employment law. He also served as managing partner of the Pipe Line Contractors Association [http://www.plca.org/] , an important trade group in oil-rich Texas, from its inception in 1948 to his death. (PICA negotiates labor contracts and promotes safety practices in the pipeline construction industry.) When he died in 2003, he was survived by his wife, Billie, his son, Dallas attorney Richard A. Gump, Jr., his daughter, Marilyn Gump Stewart, and three grandchildren.