Debra Evenson (1942 – August 17, 2011) was an American legal expert on Cuba, a practicing lawyer, and an educator. She was president of the

National Lawyers Guild The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is a progressive public interest association of lawyers, law students, paralegals, jailhouse lawyers, law collective members, and other activist legal workers, in the United States. The group was founded in 193 ...

from 1988 until 1991.Debra Evenson papers
DePaul University Special Collections and Archives. Accessed June 2, 2017.

Education and early career

Evenson was born in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

in 1942. She attended

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

, graduating with a B.A. in 1964. Then, Evenson received a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

from

Rutgers Law School Rutgers Law School is the law school of Rutgers University, with classrooms in Newark and Camden, New Jersey. It is the largest public law school and the 10th largest law school, overall, in the United States. Each class in the three-year J.D. pr ...

in 1976. After working on

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, for the firm Wilkie, Farr, and Gallagher, Evenson took a position as an associate professor of Law at

DePaul University DePaul University is a private university, private, Catholic higher education, Catholic research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Congregation of the Mission, Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th-centu ...

in 1980.

Career

Evenson first visited Cuba in 1982. She visited numerous times, conducting a study of the Cuban legal system since the revolution. She left DePaul University in 1992, and joined the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

law firm Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Lieberman. With the firm, Evenson represented the Cuban government, supporting Cuban sovereignty.Boghosian, Heidi. "NLG Mourns the Passing of Debra Evenson." ''National Lawyers Guild Review'' 68.2 (2011): 126-12

/ref> She was also licensed to practice law in Cuba, where she worked with high government officials and civilians. In 1993, she was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant to research the role of lawyers in the changing Cuban society. Evenson wrote dozens of articles on Cuban laws and institutions, and she represented Cuba in numerous important court cases. She was a "critical supporter of the Cuban revolution," and advocated for understanding Cuba as a complex system, successful in some areas and unsuccessful in others. Evenson arrived in Cuba as lawyers were necessary in society again, as the revolution gave way to institutions. Evenson was taken with the evolving legal landscape in Cuba and devoted her time and writing to it. Evenson was part of the cohort of lawyers and scholars that revived the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) in the 1960s and 1970s. Later, from 1988 until 1991, Evenson served as president of the NLG. From 1996 until the early 2000s, Evenson was president of the Latin American Institute for Alternative Legal Services, a human rights legal group. In 2007, Evenson co-founded and served as executive director of the Center for Inter-American Legal Education, which supports education exchanges between lawyers and scholars in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

. She was a founding board member of the Sugar Law Center, which created an award in her honor following her death in 2011. DePaul University Special Collections and Archives holds a collection of biographical information on Evenson, her publications, and notes, donated by Evenson in 2003.

Bibliography

* "Midwives: Survival of an Ancient Profession." ''Women's Rights Law Reporter'' 7.4 (1982): 313–330

* "Economic Regulation in Cuba: The State Arbitration System." ''Loy. LA Int'l & Comp. LJ'' 8 (1985): 371

* "Women's Equality in Cuba: What Difference Does a Revolution Make." ''Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice'' 4.2 (1986): 295–326

* "Women's Rights and the Media." ''Guild Practitioner'' 48.1 (1991): 18–21

* ''Revolution in the Balance: Law and Society in Contemporary Cuba'' (1994). Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. * ''Law and Society in Contemporary Cuba'' (2001). * ''Workers in Cuba: Unions and labour relations''. Institute of Employment Rights, 200

* ''The Chosen Island: Jews in Cuba'' (2005), Maritza Corrales and Debra Evenson (translator). * "Cuba's Biotechnology Revolution." ''MEDICC review'' 9.1 (2007): 8-10

* "Opening Paths to Renewed Popular Participation." ''Latin American Perspectives,'' Vol. 36, No. 2, Cuba: Interpreting a Half Century of Revolution and Resistance, Part 2 (Mar., 2009), pp. 95–103.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Evenson, Debra DePaul University Special Collections and Archives holdings Barnard College alumni Rutgers University alumni 20th-century American women lawyers Law of Cuba 1942 births 2011 deaths 20th-century American lawyers