In the spring of 1982, Edward Washington II took his last exam at Washington University of St. Louis School of Law and waited for the official notification of the successful completion of his legal studies.
Once he got that letter in the campus mail, he packed up his car and drove north on Interstate 55 to his hometown of Chicago, not altogether sure he’d ever be back in St. Louis again. “At that point, I was exhausted and broke,” recalls Washington, JD ’82. “I only had the money to get home and take the bar exam. I didn’t want to burden my mother. She was a divorced, displaced housewife who was putting herself through school along with four other children in private Catholic school. We just couldn’t swing getting back down here for Commencement.
“I thought that that was it for me,” he says. “When I left St. Louis, I thought WashU would disappear out of my rearview mirror.”
But the years spent on the Danforth Campus tend to stay with you. Over time, Washington says, WashU would insert itself into what he calls the “fabric” of a 40-plus–year legal career in Chicago. His distinguished career included private practice, advising Fortune 500 corporations and major national law firms, and 15 years as a circuit court judge of Cook County, presiding over 170 jury trials to verdict. Washington also served Cook County as the chair of the judicial inquiry board.
“I would collaborate with WashU alumni, work with and represent WashU lawyers, and assist with federal clerkships and placements for WashU law students,” says Washington, who is semiretired but maintains a commercial litigations and mediation practice. He also teaches civil, criminal and trial advocacy at Harvard Law School. He says as the years went on, he came to regret not attending the ceremony that publicly declared completion of his law studies. And because his mother had sacrificed so much, it haunted him that she never got to see him in his WashU regalia.
Fast forward nearly four decades. His daughter, McKenzie Washington, AB ’24 (biology), was accepted into WashU, studying pre-med and playing four years of varsity volleyball. Graduating in December 2024, she also participated in the spring 2025 Commencement ceremony, which was a cause for celebration for the whole family, including her father, Judge Washington, and grandmother, Ava Washington.
The ‘powerful legacy of education’
That wouldn’t be the only celebration. Gina Tramelli in University Advancement learned of Judge Washington’s back story, and the School of Law took it from there. On Sunday, May 11, Mother’s Day, just an hour after McKenzie Washington received her diploma in the Arts & Sciences ceremony at Francis Olympic Stadium, Judge Washington got his long overdue Commencement ceremony in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom in Anheuser-Busch Hall.
That ceremony took place in the presence of family and friends, including his mother, Ada, who thought she was being gifted a quiet room to cool off. She didn’t learn of the event until her son appeared in WashU’s signature green academic regalia. By the time Michael M. Greenfield, the George Alexander Madill Professor of Contracts & Commercial Law Emeritus at WashU Law and a former professor of Washington’s, was placing the purple hood over his head, there were more than a few tears in the courtroom.
‘My child was about to do something that I did not do, could not do, and did not expect to do, and that was to walk across a stage and get her degree from WashU right when she graduated.’
Judge Edward Washington II
During the event’s introduction, Stefanie Lindquist, the Nickerson Dean and professor of law, said: “This celebration is a testament to their dedication to the powerful legacy of education in the Washington family. Judge Washington’s career serves as an inspiring chronicle of professional milestones and unwavering service.”
That McKenzie, highly recruited in high school for both academics and volleyball, matriculated at WashU would have been enough for Washington. “I didn’t put any type of legacy pressure on her,” Washington says. “I was just proud that she did it on her own because WashU is not an easy place to get into.”
In yet another coincidence, Greenfield, Washington’s contracts professor, is a superfan of the WashU Bears volleyball team, and he attends home games whenever he’s able. Washington and his wife, Leslie Demourelle, sat near Greenfield and his wife at home games many times and didn’t realize he was sitting so close to his former teacher until the very end of McKenzie’s career.
So Greenfield providing the pomp to the family’s circumstance proved extra special. And now, less than four years after dropping his daughter off on the Danforth Campus and realizing WashU was more than an image in his rearview mirror, Washington was able to erase a lifelong regret.
“It’s strange, what becomes consequence and coincidence,” Washington says. “Who can know for sure? My child was about to do something that I did not do, could not do, and did not expect to do, and that was to walk across a stage and get her degree from WashU right when she graduated.
“McKenzie gave rise to the occasion for us not only to reclaim an honor, but to pay tribute — on Mother’s Day of all days — not only to my mother but to all mothers who selflessly support their children, no matter what their family structure.”
Ada Washington, a vibrant 85-year-old, wasn’t scheduled to speak, but she made her way to the podium after group pictures were taken to say a few words of her own. She said she was excited when she crossed the Poplar Street Bridge and saw the Gateway Arch. “But when I saw the building with the big ‘WashU’ on it from the highway, my heart began to soar.” (She was referring to the Jeffrey T. Fort Neuroscience Research Building on the Medical Campus, whose electronic “WashU” sign can be seen far and wide.)
“I realized then that we lived so near, and yet so far,” she said.
And then she turned to her son and said, “Since he was 16 years of age, he told me, ‘Mom I’m going to be a lawyer.’” And then she paused. “Congratulations, son. You did it!”
