Secretary of Administration
Lisa Hicks-Thomas
Chesapeake, Virginia. She graduated from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, receiving a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History in 1991. She went on to the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary where she received her Juris Doctorate in 1994 and was admitted to the bar shortly thereafter.
Mrs. Hicks-Thomas began her six-year career as a prosecuting attorney in the Chesapeake Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office where she prosecuted thousands of cases in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations, General District and Circuit courts.
In 2001, former Attorney General Mark Earley asked Lisa to join his office as an Assistant Attorney General and Chief of the newly-formed Computer Crimes Unit. As chief, she oversaw investigations into child exploitation cases, Internet fraud, identity theft, and infrastructure security breaches and prosecuted the cases in state and federal court.
During her tenure with the Office of the Attorney General she sat on several technology-related panels, including various Advisory Committees to the Joint Commission on Technology and Science and is an active member of the National Association of Attorneys General Computer Crime Working Group. She is credited with working with the Virginia General Assembly to pass various pieces of legislation addressing cybercrime and child exploitation, spearheading a statewide initiative to promote youth Internet safety and authoring Virginia’s Anti-Spam law, which went into effect July 1, 2003. She then used this new law, touted as the toughest anti-Spam law in the nation, to pursue the criminal prosecution of Jeremy Jaynes, listed by ROKSO as the #8 spammer in the world. Jaynes was convicted and the jury recommended a nine-year prison sentence for his crimes. This was the first-of-its-kind prosecution in the nation.
In 2007, Attorney General Bob McDonnell appointed Lisa as his Deputy Attorney General managing a staff of attorneys and overseeing the legal work for the Transportation, Real Estate, Environmental and Technology Division of the Office of the Attorney General. In addition to her duties at the Office of the Attorney General, she served as a member of the Board of Governors for the Education of Lawyers Section of the Virginia State Bar and has taught a Cybercrime course at the University of Richmond.
This year Governor McDonnell appointed Lisa as Secretary of Administration for the Commonwealth of Virginia. In her capacity as Secretary she oversees a number of state agencies, including the Department of General Services, the State Board of Elections, the Department of Minority Business Enterprise and the Department of Human Resource Management. Lisa is married to Samuel Thomas, a native of Portsmouth Virginia and they have two beautiful children, Carson, 6 and Casey, 3.
Office of the Secretary of Administration
Patrick Henry Building
1111 East Broad Street
Richmond, VA 23219
For regular U.S. mail, please use the following address:
P.O. Box 1475
Richmond, VA 23218
Phone Numbers:
804.786.1201
Fax Line: 804.371.0038
