Eva Hanks, a distinguished figure in legal education, a pioneer for women in academia, and Rutgers Law School’s first woman law professor, passed away on June 12, 2024 at the age of 95. Her career spanned over five decades, leaving an indelible mark on Rutgers Law School and the broader legal profession.

Megan Adams, a first year student at Rutgers Law School, is the first to admit that her parents and upbringing played a role in her decision to attend Rutgers Law. What she didn’t realize until she got to campus was how close she’d feel to her late grandmother, who worked at the law library for 25 years until her retirement in 2004.

Everything was going according to plan for Dhara Patel. She had leveraged her graduate-level training in accounting to build a successful career for herself, first at a Big Four accounting firm, then at a smaller consulting group. Eventually, she left the corporate world and joined her family’s business, where she started her own consulting company. Patel quickly realized how often she worked with attorneys in this new role and how much legal work was embedded in her new responsibilities, from drafting leases for residential and commercial tenants to writing employment contracts for office workers. Getting her JD just made sense.

Rutgers Law School’s Association for Public Interest Law (APIL) in Camden raised more than $17,000 to fund law students working in unpaid summer public interest positions. Every qualifying student who applied for a stipend will be funded thanks in part to APIL’s two fundraisers in April – an auction and a 5K run.