From the Duke News Service

In the largest gift to legal education in North Carolina, the estate of the late Kathrine R. Everett has pledged $14 million to be divided between Duke and the University of North Carolina law schools, officials from both schools announced Wednesday.

The UNC Law School will use the funds toward its current renovation project and for student scholarships and international initiatives. Duke Law School will use the gift to support its Center on Law, Ethics and National Security (LENS) and other future projects. Exact distribution of the funds has yet to be determined.

"With this very generous gift, the Everett family continues its remarkable record of service and leadership to the legal communities of North Carolina and the nation and to the citizens of our state and country," said Duke President Nannerl O. Keohane. "UNC Law School alumna Kathrine Robinson Everett and her son, Robinson O. Everett, long a member of the Duke School of Law faculty, have once again provided leadership that strengthens both institutions, and we are most grateful."

William McCoy, acting chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said, "Carolina is fortunate to count the Everetts as friends and family. Kathrine Everett was a remarkable Tar Heel, and her son, Robinson, has distinguished himself as a jurist, scholar and practitioner. Mrs. Everett's bequest will improve the education experiences and opportunities of Carolina law students and faculty for many years to come."

Kathrine Everett, who died in 1992 at the age of 98, was a respected North Carolina lawyer whose career spanned seven decades. She was one of the first women to graduate from the University of North Carolina Law School, where she ranked at the head of her class, and the first woman to argue and win a case before the North Carolina Supreme Court. She earned the top score on the state bar exam in 1920.

In 1951, she became one of the first two women elected to the Durham City Council, serving there for 20 years. Later in her life, Kathrine Everett established UHF television stations in Durham, Greensboro, Wilmington and Fayetteville.

Her husband, Reuben Oscar Everett, was one of the first five law students at Duke. Their son and only child, Robinson O. Everett, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1950 and joined the Duke Law faculty that same year at age 22, the youngest faculty member in Duke's history. He earned a master of laws degree from Duke Law School in 1959. In 1954, the Everetts were the first family of lawyers sworn in together to the Bar of the United States Supreme Court.

Robinson Everett served in the Korean War in the Judge Advocate General's Department and afterward as a commissioner of the U.S. Court of Military Appeals. He remained in the Air Force Reserve until he retired as colonel in 1978. In 1980, President Carter appointed him chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. Everett founded Duke Law School's LENS Center in 1993. The center is dedicated to the teaching and study of national security law and advising policy makers on critical national security issues.

"I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to participate in carrying out my mother's dream of helping the two law schools to which she was so devoted," Robinson Everett said of the gift.

Judith Wegner, dean of the UNC School of Law, said "Kathrine Everett lived her life in a remarkably vigorous and inspiring fashion, drawing on the strengths of her own family and upbringing, and sharing that legacy with all who knew her. Her presence, warmth and energy were inspiring, and during her rendezvous with history, she broke barriers that had long kept women from the legal profession. She was a forerunner, pathfinder and heroine to me and many others, someone whose inspiration will live long beyond her death.

"This is an extraordinary gift that keeps on giving. The Everett funds will assist students and help the School of Law in ways that were close to Kathrine's heart. It is wonderful to know that the wise investments made by Robinson and Kathrine will provide such a substantial boost to law school programs at Kathrine's alma mater, and to legal education in North Carolina, for years to come."

Said Pamela Gann, dean of Duke Law School: "We are indebted to the Everetts, mother and son, for their unparalleled support of legal education and for their contributions to the law and to their community. Judith Wegner and I have known and admired the Everett family for more than two decades. Kathrine was truly an inspiration and Robinson's vision and backing of the LENS center has enabled Duke Law School to have an impact with Congress and national policy makers on critical national security issues."

Wegner, Gann and Everett have served as trustees of the Everett charitable trust through which the $14 million gift will be implemented.

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