There’s been much discussion about Judge Richard Posner’s death this week, about which I’ll say more later. But I did not want the passing of my dear friend, the amazing Gail Agrawal, to get lost in the news. Gail and I met at UNC Law, where we were colleagues for a time. But we remained close friends after that, as we each took up positions elsewhere. Those of you who knew Gail know that one of her great traits was to maintain close friendships across time and geography. It was evident any time you needed an introduction to someone (a judge, a law professor or dean, a busy lawyer, or a business contact) — if you were sent by Gail people would go out of their way to help you, because they cared so much about her. She was an amazing person — the first person in her family to even finish high school, she went on to clerk for the Supreme Court, be a successful lawyer, a successful law school professor, and a successful dean twice over. Her illness took her quickly, which I realize is a blessing, but is still hard to accept. As a mutual friend put it “she died with the same grace and efficiency with which she lived.” RIP Gail. You will be sorely missed by so many. Gail’s full obituary is here and I’ve excerpted portions below.
Gail married Dr. Naurang Agrawal, a native of Bombay (now Mumbai), India, on November 22, 1975. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in Spain, which was also the first European country Gail ever visited, the year before she and Naurang married. World travelers, Gail and Naurang visited more than 50 countries, some multiple times, and 47 states. Their plans to visit the final three states (South Dakota, North Dakota, and Idaho) were short-circuited by illness. Naurang and Gail loved ethnic foods, fine dining and good wine, spending time with their friends and family, attending the theater, collecting contemporary Southern art, and visiting presidential libraries, museums and sculpture gardens. Gail was an avid reader and committed to the rule of law. Theirs was a good and rich life.
Gail was the first in her immediate family to earn a high school diploma (Andrew Jackson ’69), to graduate from college (BA ’78, University of New Orleans, now (LSUNO), to receive a Master’s degree (MPH ’83, Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine), and jointly to earn a Juris Doctor ’83 summa cum laude (Tulane School of Law). She was inducted into Delta Omega, the honors society in public health, and Order of the Coif, the honors society in Law.
Gail went on to have a fulfilling career that brought her both satisfaction and joy. After graduating first in her class from law school, Gail clerked for the late Honorable John Minor Wisdom, then a senior judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the Honorable Sandra Day O’Connor, during her fourth term as Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. Gail practiced health law with Monroe and Lemann, then a New Orleans based law firm, and in-house with Aetna, Inc., in Hartford, Connecticut. During the time Gail practiced law in New Orleans, she also served on the adjunct faculty of Tulane Law School. Gail later joined the law faculty of the University of North Carolina, earning tenure and serving as associate dean and interim dean. She is especially proud of her students who went on to become health lawyers. Gail later became the first female dean of the University of Kansas Law School, before retiring from the University of Iowa College of Law after serving eight years as its dean. She was an elected life member of the American Law Institute, a Fellow of the American Bar Association, and a long-time member and Fellow of the American Health Lawyers Association. She served on, including a term as chair of the federal Advisory Committee on Organ Transplantation (ACOT), which has since been terminated.