Law school scholarship honors former chief justice

PORTLAND – The University of Maine School of Law has created a new endowment fund in honor of Parkman native Vincent L. McKusick, former chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

The scholarship fund was created with an initial pledge of $100,000 from Pierce Atwood, the Portland-based law firm where McKusick worked for many years.

“We sincerely thank Pierce Atwood for such a generous gift and value this commitment to diversity,” Peter Pitegoff, dean of the University of Maine School of Law, said recently. “We are especially pleased to honor Chief Justice McKusick, who has inspired so many people in Maine and nationally with his dedication to the legal profession and to social justice.”

The Vincent L. McKusick Fellowship Fund is designed to provide tuition and other support to incoming students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, the law school announced. The intent of the fund is to increase the diversity of the student body and the state’s legal community.

The law school’s goal is to award the first McKusick Fellowship in 2009, once the endowment has reached $250,000, Pitegoff said. The fund will be held by the University of Maine School of Law Foundation, which will assist in securing additional support and growing the endowment in the coming years.

Born and raised in Parkman, McKusick served in the Army from 1943 to 1946. He spent 14 months working on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, N.M., which oversaw the development of the atomic bomb.

McKusick began his legal career in Maine at Pierce Atwood in 1952 after graduating from Bates College and Harvard Law School and serving as a law clerk to Learned Hand, chief judge of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.

In 1977, Gov. James Longley appointed McKusick to serve as chief justice, the first person selected directly from the legal community since the appointment of Chief Justice Prentiss Mellon in 1820.

McKusick retired from the bench in 1992 and resides with his wife, Nancy, in Cape Elizabeth.

“This is a great honor for a great man,” Bruce Coggeshall, managing partner of Pierce Atwood, said of the firm’s donation. “Chief McKusick has been a mentor to so many people in the legal profession and now that legacy will continue as students who have historically been disadvantaged in education and the workplace will have a chance to develop a career in the law.”

For information on the fellowship, call Elena Brandt at 780-4521.