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“Bill Mathews ’63A and I go back to September 1963. I sat next to him that first day of class. He transferred to the University of Texas, but he, Ron Quigley and I started our firm back in 1969. All these years later, we’re one of the few law firms with the same name and the same partners. We started with just the three of us, and now we have 25 attorneys.” Davis grew up in the in the D.C. area and graduated, with honors, from Duke, where he met his wife, Sue. He said his decision to attend W&L was easy. “They S u e a n d B a x t e r D av i s ’ 6 6 offered me a scholarship,” he explained. The two married at the end of his second year, and while he plowed through his third year, she taught in the local schools. “It was an interesting time to be there,” Sue Davis remembered. “We lived in married housing on Nelson Street—the military barracks—and walls were thin: you needed a space heater in the winter. None of us had any money, really nothing. But we had a lot of fun and ate a lot of hot dogs.” As a 2L, Davis wrote for the Law Review and served as the editor in chief his final year, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. “I got a lot of value from working on the Law Review,” he said. “As lawyers, writing is what we’re all about, and it taught me the importance of good, clear writing. I edit my partners’ work from time to time, and I still use a red pen and all the same editing symbols.” Davis and his wife recently established the A charitable remainder unitrust pays income based on Baxter and Sue Davis Charitable Remainder a percentage of the fair market value of the trust assets as deterUnitrust, of which W&L is now a co-beneficiary. mined annually. Because a unitrust pays a variable amount of income based on the annual market value of the trust assets, this “We created the unitrust because we felt it was a form of trust fund may provide an effective hedge against inflation. good way to give to the beneficiary of our choice. When the value of the trust principal increases, so will the donor’s Under the current revenue code, we were able income. Unitrusts may receive additional gifts during the donor’s to establish a good rate of return that guarantees lifetime or as a testamentary transfer through the donor’s will. us an income. We felt good about it.” Upon the death of the last surviving beneficiary or at the end of Sue Davis added, “We felt that it was the fixed term, the School of Law will receive the principal being important to give to the church and school that held in trust. The donor may determine the use of the principal, had contributed so much to our success.” such as establishing a scholarship, professorship or lecture series. Or the donor may leave the use to the School’s discretion. For more information on how you can support the School of Law, please contact Elizabeth Outland Branner, director of Law School Advancement, at (540) 458-8191 or brannere@wlu.edu.