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Las Vegas attorneys make record donation to California law school

Updated October 13, 2021 - 7:42 pm

Two prominent Las Vegas civil trial attorneys have donated $25 million to a California law school, the largest donation in the school’s history.

With their gift to University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, Robert and Tracy Eglet, partners at the firm Eglet Adams, made one of the top 15 donations to any U.S. law school, according to a news release. The husband and wife allocated $5 million for the school’s advocacy center and $20 million for scholarships for first-generation students and students of color.

The money, which would become the school’s greatest donation in its 97-year history and the second largest to a California law school, is slated to be distributed over the course of a few years.

Robert Eglet, who grew up in Las Vegas and graduated from UNLV before attending the McGeorge School of Law, said the private university was considered “Nevada’s law school” before Boyd Law School was established in 1998.

Robert Eglet said he wants the money to support first-generation college students such as himself. Both he and his wife, who attended law school at Ohio Northern University, were able to afford schooling because of financial aid.

“We wouldn’t have been able to get through school without it,” he said.

He hopes the scholarships will inspire students to pursue civil trial law. In past decades, very few civil suits have been resolved through jury trials, he said.

“It has a lot of negative consequences for our judicial system, our democracy and everything else,” Robert Eglet said.

The university will rename its advocacy program to the Eglet Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution, the release said. The donation will also help cover competition fees and travel costs for the school’s mock trial and other competitive teams.

The Eglets also have been funding scholarships at Boyd Law School for more than 10 years and have been funding the school’s mock trial program for several years, Robert Eglet said.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.

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