Two prominent Las Vegas civil litigation attorneys donated $ 25 million to a California law school, the largest donation in the school’s history.
With their gift to the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific in Sacramento, Robert and Tracy Eglet, partners of the law firm Eglet Adams, made one of the 15 largest donations to a US law school, according to a press release. The husband and wife provided $ 5 million for the school’s legal center and $ 20 million in scholarships for first-generation and color students.
The money, which would become the school’s largest donation in its 97-year history and the second largest to a California law school, is slated to be distributed over a few years.
Robert Eglet, who grew up in Las Vegas and graduated from UNLV before attending McGeorge School of Law, said the private university was known as “Nevada’s Law School” before Boyd Law School was founded in 1998.
Robert Eglet said he wanted the money to help first-generation college students like him. Both he and his wife, who was studying law at Ohio Northern University, were able to afford education thanks to financial help.
“Without her we wouldn’t have made it to school,” he says.
He hopes the scholarships will inspire students to pursue civil procedural law. Very few civil lawsuits have been resolved by jury in recent decades, he said.
“It has many negative consequences for our judicial system, our democracy and everything else,” said Robert Eglet.
The university will rename its advocacy program the Eglet Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution, the announcement said. The donation will also help cover competition fees and travel expenses for the school’s rehearsal process and other competition teams.
The Eglets have also funded scholarships at Boyd Law School for more than 10 years and have funded the school’s pilot program for several years, Robert Eglet said.
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