J. Richard Knop, J.D. ’69, had been out of touch with his alma mater when an article profiling his successful career as a merger expert who found a niche in government contracting appeared in the Jan. 16, 2006, issue of The Washington Post.
Reading the article, Frederick M. Lawrence, dean and Robert Kramer Research Professor of Law, noticed Mr. Knop was an alumnus. He invited Mr. Knop to lunch and then to join the Law School’s Board of Advisors.
“Fred’s outreach to me, which he has done with many other Law School alumni, has been a wonderful experience for me and my wife, Leslee Belluchie,” says Mr. Knop, who now regularly attends the school’s events and shares his experience and knowledge with the GW law community.
Mr. Knop, who is a recipient of GW’s Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award, remembers working to put himself through law school. Now that he is in a position to give back to GW, he hopes to give current students opportunities he never had. The Law School recently announced the establishment of the J. Richard Knop Scholarship Fund, based on a $1 million dollar gift from Mr. Knop and his wife.
“We are dedicated to ensuring that a GW Law education is accessible to all qualified students,” says Dean Lawrence. “Rick Knop’s generosity of spirit is inspirational, and his contribution helps reduce our graduates’ loan burdens so the cost of education will not limit their ability to make their mark on the world. In this and so many other ways, Rick is a model GW Law alumnus.”
The gift is part of the George Washington Power and Promise Fund, which seeks to ensure that qualified students, regardless of financial resources, can take full advantage of a GW education.
“I am hopeful that in some small way my contribution to the Law School and GW will help attract high-quality students who would not otherwise be able to come to GW,” he says. “I know that for GW to become an even greater law school, it needs to be able to offer scholarships to attract the best and brightest and to provide diversity in the student body.”
When he was a student, Mr. Knop took classes in the mornings and then walked three blocks to his office at the State Department, where he clerked for Marjorie Whiteman, then counselor of international law. He worked full time in the summer and part time during the academic year. “I would not have been able to go to law school without that job,” he says.
The current economic downturn and the high cost of living in Washington make it hard for people to pay for law school, Mr. Knop says. “Hopefully, this scholarship will help keep the caliber of the student body high.”
Mr. Knop is co-founder of the Windsor Group, a middle-market mergers and acquisitions firm that BB&T Capital Markets purchased five years ago. He was senior managing director at BB&T and co-head of its government and defense group before founding the private equity fund FedCap earlier this year. FedCap focuses on the government contracting industry, an area of strength for GW’s Law School, he says.
Mr. Knop chaired the campaign to create the endowed Nash-Cibinic Professorship, named for Ralph Nash and John Cibinic, the two creators of the Law School’s program in government contracts law. According to Mr. Knop, GW has one of the leading law schools in the world in the discipline.
When he transitioned from practicing law to investment banking, Mr. Knop found his legal training was very critical to his success. “At their heart, mergers and acquisitions are a complex legal transaction,” he says. “But for my law degree and my connection to GW, I would not have had the career I had.”