Former Navy Lawyer Is Giving Back Both Now and Later

Weston D. Burnett, LLM '83, JD '75, spent 27 years as a Navy lawyer and lived in 25 different places by the time he was 50 and sees his life as three intersecting circles: family, future, and service. “You take the intersection of those three circles, and that is GW,” says Wes matter-of-factly, which is why he sits on the University board of trustees and has made major lifetime and planned gifts, including funding a Law School dean position and a beneficiary designation of his 401(k).

“I was making donations that were to be honest 100 bucks in the 1990s, but I found that I really enjoyed getting back to GW and the associated memories it brought me,” relates Wes, who after the Navy opened a private law practice and a securities investment firm and began volunteering tirelessly for GW Law. “The connections happened first; then the idea of making significant donations grew on me and on Barbara, my wife. It boiled down to where we thought the money would do the most good.”

Wes and Barbara are currently endowing the position of dean for international and comparative law and policy studies, the field in which Wes and six other family members have worked. His planned gift, the 401(k), already includes a significant amount of money and is continuing to grow. He also has been honored by the Law School and alumni for his service.

Wes’s connection to GW is long-standing; both his father and father-in-law have master’s degrees in international affairs from the University, and his grandfather was a vice admiral who was a classmate and friend of a GW president. Wes came to GW after earning his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt, where he met Barbara, who recently started her 42nd year teaching math, mostly at the middle school level.

“She is the one who put me through law school,” Wes says. “We got married my first year at GW, and on a first-year teacher’s salary and with some jobs I had I was able to graduate with no debt.”

Once Wes became a Navy JAG (Judge Advocate General), his career took them to the Far East, Europe, and both coasts of the United States, with Barbara finding teaching jobs in all of those places. Wes returned to GW in 1982 to obtain a master’s degree in international and comparative law.

“A lot of my work has involved that, from treaty negotiations to getting sailors out of jail,” he says.

Barbara went to the University of Virginia for her master’s.

“We had one youngster and she was pregnant with a second and was teaching while getting a master’s,” Wes recalls. “I don’t know how we did it.”

But they did, raising three children now in their 30s. Wes retired from the Navy in 2000 and set up his private practice and the securities firm.

“Most people who have worked for the government don’t cross over and become a businessman,” Wes says. “I have a law firm that does wills, trusts, etc., all related to estate planning. And I also have a securities firm; I’m a registered investment advisor, and we manage $300 million of our client’s money. I love my clients, I love my work, and I love what I do with GW, which is reaping the benefit from my private practice to some degree–because I believe they will use it well.”

His volunteer work for GW started simply enough: He allowed his name to appear on the Law School dean’s fundraising letter. “That was easy,” he says. “I just signed a letter, and it went out to a lot of people.”

He followed that up by joining the alumni board of directors of the Law School, eventually becoming president. Then he joined the dean’s board of advisors–“kind of like a kitchen cabinet of donors making sure the School does well.” Then came the University’s at-large alumni association, where he became vice president. In 2010 he won the Alumni Outstanding Service Award, and in 2013 he received the Jacob Burns Outstanding Service Award from the Law School.

“At that point in time they asked me to join the board of trustees, which ultimately has the fiduciary responsibility of the University,” Wes says. “It means knowing what all 10 colleges are doing, not just the Law School. So I spent a couple of hours with each of the college deans; I didn’t see how I could do a good job as trustee without knowing what the deans said.”

Wes’s four-year term began in the summer of 2013. When the Law School dean’s position became vacant, Wes was appointed to the search committee, a process that took nine months and culminated with the hiring of Blake Morant. Now Wes chairs a committee looking at revising the procedure of how the University hires new deans, with a goal of optimizing the selection process.

Wes hopes that more Law School alumni will get more involved–and contribute more.

“If you haven’t been back, come back!” he urges. “Visit the School and see how much it’s changed. The people who went years ago would be shocked and amazed and wondrous at the changes. It is amazing to see the facilities.

“The Law School in the 70s was a commuter school; nobody lived on campus, and it was not a true community. Now the Law School is a destination where people go. They take away a much richer experience than those who attended decades ago.

“The Law School is ranked No. 20 in the country, but when you look at law schools in regards to publications, research, and writing by faculty, the No. 1 site from which articles are downloaded is Harvard–and No. 2 is GW. That is quite extraordinary.

“If you want to give, give with an eye to the future–with money that helps with scholarships for students.”