Professor of Law Robinson Everett, a former judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, died in his sleep last week.
Still an active professor, he was finishing grading papers from his Spring courses at the time of his death at 81. At age 22, Everett became the youngest person ever to teach in the School of Law, and he was the most senior member of the faculty when he died. Everett was a part of the Duke Law faculty for 51 years, according to a news release on the School of Law's Web site.
David Levi, dean of the School of Law, said Everett had a great reputation as a legal scholar both locally and across the nation.
"He was not just a force in the Durham community, very active, but he was a nationally known lawyer, very known on the national scene and people all over the country knew Robbie and worked with him," Levi said.
He also left a visible mark on the School of Law with the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security, which Everett founded in 1993.
"Anything you say about Robbie Everett is an understatement," said Scott Silliman, executive director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security. "As I traveled with him. I never met anyone who didn't respect him, didn't hold him in the highest esteem and didn't love him as a man."
Everett and his mother wished to establish the center at Duke to teach and study national security law, Silliman said. At the time, only one other such center existed, he added.
Beyond his half-century influence at the University, Everett was also influential as both a plaintiff and attorney in North Carolina congressional redistricting litigation from 1992 to 2000. Everett argued the issue four times before the Supreme Court, and his arguments are now widely taught as an example of how to challenge congressional redistricting on the basis of race, Silliman said.
"There were many in the state who applauded Robinson Everett for what he was doing, and I'm sure there were many who didn't appreciate what he was doing," Silliman said. "He had the courage to take his convictions of what the Constitution required and argued them in a court of law."
A Durham native, Everett's ties to Duke and the law go back to his parents-Everett's mother was a prominent lawyer and his father, Reuben Everett, attended Trinity College, the predecessor to Duke, and was one of the University's first law students. Everett graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1950 and returned to North Carolina to teach at Duke's Law School.
"He was a person with enormous energy-to accomplish what he did is almost unbelievable..." Levi said. "He enjoyed helping people, he enjoyed helping students... and I think if you had to say what would you remember most about Robbie, I think it was his smile."
Indeed, Silliman said Everett will be missed by all who knew him, especially the many students he developed relationships with over more than 50 years.
"He passed away, but the legacy which he has left will continue," Silliman said "His students are now judges and congressmen, so everyone who learned, everyone who sat in a classroom with Robinson O. Everett takes a piece of him with them."
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