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Meet Our Donors

We are thankful for those who have made an estate gift to American University Washington College of Law. Here are their stories.

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Judge Nan R. Shuker’s Legacy

The Honorable Nan Shuker ’69 remains deeply grateful to the AUWCL faculty who became her mentors during a time when women law students were a rarity. She chose to include AUWCL in her estate plan to ensure that the students of tomorrow are afforded the same incomparable educational benefits she enjoyed, and the opportunity to champion what matters.

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Paying Her Scholarship Forward

After a decade as a teacher, input from mentors and some soul-searching, Jill, JD ’92, came to American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL) to pursue a service-minded law career.

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Darrell Netherton, WCL ’77

Sometimes smaller is better, especially in a big city. Following his graduate and undergraduate studies at large, state universities, Darrell Netherton, WCL ’77, was drawn by the size of American University’s Washington College of Law.

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Dorothy Toth Beasley, WCL/LLB '64

For Washington College of Law alumna Dorothy Toth Beasley, a legal career meant continuing a family tradition. Beasley, a senior judge for the state of Georgia, says part-time work and financial assistance provided by the Grace Markel Daish Scholarship were integral in kick-starting her 50-year career as an attorney, judge and mediator.

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Cynthia Katkish, WCL/JD ’88

As a child in Pittsburgh, Katkish would hide her eyes when her family drove past the foreboding concrete walls of a local prison. But soon after law school graduation, she found herself within jail walls to meet with clients accused of major crimes. “Here I was in jail representing a guy arrested on a fugitive warrant for a murder elsewhere,” she says. “From felonies to serious civil cases, I safeguarded clients’ legal rights. I never walked away feeling that I didn’t help them 100 percent, and my clients knew that.”

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