​Burnell Jones

JD

Board Member

Burnell Jones, JD, grew up in a New Orleans housing project, one of five children raised by a single mother. A four-year scholarship took him to Boston College. He came to Houston for law school at Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law, graduated with honors, and has been in private practice since 1983.

Jones became sober at 40, and recovery changed how he practices law. Working mostly on the criminal side of the justice system, including with drug courts, he shares his own experience when it is appropriate and points clients toward treatment as an alternative to the cycle of pain and incarceration. “I became more of a counselor than an attorney,” he says.

He sees addiction as an illness, and the fight for treatment as “a winnable one.” “There are a lot of people who don’t know another way to live – they are lost,” he says. “They have an illness and need to get treated. Treatment and continuing on in their recovery gives people a chance for a different life.”

On the board he draws on years of representing people with backgrounds like those HRC serves, and on his own. “I’ve been on both sides of it. I know what it’s like to lose your way.” Serving is how he gives back: “Sobriety is a gift. You can’t keep it unless you give it away.”

Jones also serves as director and legal counsel for The Anonymous Alliance of Charitable Organizations, Inc. and The Power House Recovery Center.