Dee Brown, BA '70,
and Dickson Brown, BA '68, JD '71
After Dickson Brown’s first law-firm interview in New York City, he and his wife, Dee, left for the airport three hours early. The native Midwesterners couldn’t wait to leave the city behind. Even when Dickson took a job with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, the couple was firm: Three years, then back to our roots.
They stayed for 37 years.
“I loved my job,” says Dickson, a tax law specialist. “I can’t imagine doing anything more interesting than what I worked on over the years.”
The couple met on a blind date as undergraduates at Michigan, where he majored in economics, she in journalism. They married when Dickson was in law school, then went to New York “so Dee could be a buyer at Bloomingdale’s,” as Dickson says (which, in fact, she was), and so he could practice corporate law, for which he thought the city was the place to be. Over time, tax work
proved more satisfying.
“
I liked the intellectual challenge of putting puzzles together,” he says. “And the people I worked with had good attitudes about their work and their lives.”
The Browns found a suburban community they loved, “a great place to raise kids,” says Dee, who gave up the 24/7 retail life for jobs she could juggle as a working mom: Welcome Wagon lady, then real estate sales.
“Through selling real estate, I was exposed to local lawyers, and I said, ‘I can do a better job than that,’” Dee recalls. She enrolled in a local law school (in order to be home when the couple’s two young sons got home from school), graduated, and built a successful community-based practice, primarily in trust and estate and real estate work.
Now retired, the Browns live in Naples, Florida, and maintain homes in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Ann Arbor, where they can be part of their six grandchildren’s daily lives. Son James and his
family live in Charlottesville. The Ann Arbor contingent includes son Kincaid (known as K.C.), BA ’94, JD ’96, MS INF ’98, head of electronic systems services, a reference librarian, and webmaster
at the Michigan Law Library; his spouse, Nancy Vettorello, MUP ’92, JD ’97, a professor in the Legal Practice Program; and their three children.
Closely tied to Michigan Law, the Browns have supported the building project with gifts totaling $500,000 and are thrilled that its traditional design matches the existing buildings. As Dee observes, “Any picture you ever see of U-M features the Law Quad.”
Dickson says their support also recognizes Dean Caminker’s “terrific” leadership and is made in thanks for the support and opportunities provided by Michigan Law.
“The project was needed,” he says, “and I like to see Michigan continue to be a first-rate national and international law school to attract people in competition with any law school in the country.”