Each year, the Advocate publishes profiles of members of the School of Law community, sharing who they are and how they have made an impact in their communities as legal leaders. One type of individual is often left out of the spotlight – the Anonymous Donor.
Who is the Anonymous Donor?
The Anonymous Donor works in big law, in small firms or as a solo practitioner. She prosecutes cases in a small town. He is a public defender in a big city. She works in corporate law. He leads a nonprofit agency or works for the government. She lives in Atlanta. He lives in Vidalia or perhaps across the country. She is a third-generation lawyer. He is the first in his family to earn a college degree. The Anonymous Donor is a Double Dawg or someone who earned an undergraduate degree from another SEC school or conference or even a university without a football team.
The Anonymous Donor understands how a gift can change the lives and experiences of those currently in law school or looking to attend UGA Law in the future. She knows that a high-quality, affordable education is a great catalyst for upward economic and social mobility.
The Anonymous Donor makes gifts to support the law school’s First-Generation Scholarship Matching Fund and motivates others to also aid those who are the first in their families to attend college. He recognizes that students in this cohort can benefit not just from financial aid but from access to bar preparation assistance, from networking opportunities and from emotional and community support.
The Anonymous Donor recognizes that a contribution to the Veterans Legal Clinic, which offers assistance to Georgia veterans with claims before the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, can fund more initiatives to benefit those who served in the military. The donor knows that supporting law students who served in the military is just one more way the School of Law ensures a legal education is accessible to all who seek it.
The Anonymous Donor has had a successful business or legal career and honors a life cut short with the establishment of the Jane W. Wilson Professorship in Business Law. The donor also chooses other ways to memorialize Wilson – a victim of domestic violence – with a $1 million pledge to support the School of Law’s Family Justice Clinic that now bears her name and to create the Jane W. Wilson Distinguished Law Fellowship.
The Anonymous Donor makes a gift to honor a faculty member who served the School of Law for more than 40 years, acknowledging the important role that world-class scholars and professors have on a student’s legal education.
The Anonymous Donor supports the Distinguished Law Fellowships offered at the School of Law, recognizing graduates who have become legal leaders in their respective fields.
The Anonymous Donor makes donations to the law school with a reminder that the most important people in one’s life may not be those who advance legal careers but rather an individual who one meets at a certain time in life who leaves a long-lasting impact on one’s worldview.
The Anonymous Donor makes a planned gift to leave a lasting legacy at the law school.
Most of all, the Anonymous Donor is appreciated and valued. Through relationships like these, the School of Law is able to help produce the next generation of legal leaders as part of its mission to redefine what it means to be a great national public law school.
Thank you, Anonymous Donor.
