June 29, 2004
GAINESVILLE, Fla. - A longtime contributor to the University of Florida and its Levin College of Law recently pledged an additional gift of $100,000 to the law school's Annual Fund to help provide opportunities for students to gain practical experience and to support academic programs and services.
Lewis M. Schott, founder and president of LMS Securities investment company in Palm Beach, donated the funds in honor of his late wife, Marcia Whitney Schott. The two earned law degrees from UF in 1946.
They were major donors to the law school's Bruton-Geer Hall building campaign in the early 1980s, resulting in the naming of the Marcia Whitney Schott Courtyard, and late that same decade contributed $50,000 to help endow the Clarence TeSelle Professorships.
"I'm very pleased with the progress of the College of Law, and happy to be able to support its continued national advancement," Schott said. "It helped prepare me for my career, and is the place that brought Marcia and me together."
The Schotts' largest contribution to the University was a gift of more than $2 million establishing the Marcia Whitney Schott Super Chair in Rheumatoid Arthritis Research, a disease from which Mrs. Schott died in 1989.
Schott, named a UF Distinguished Alumnus in 1997, initially practiced law in his hometown, Daytona Beach, and then at 26 was named to head the Alcohol Beverage Department and serve on Gov. Fuller Warren's cabinet. Subsequently the couple moved to New York where he undertook a varied and successful business career, and Mrs. Schott graduated from the New York School of Design. She was retained to create a number of Wall Street offices, and decorated the executive suites in Yankee Stadium for team owner George Steinbrenner.
"Lew Schott's investment supports the College's legacy in a vital way," said Dean Robert Jerry. "We value the generosity of Mr. Schott and all of our loyal alumni in light of our ongoing need for private funds, and to help ensure facilitation of faculty and student achievement as we move toward
becoming one of the county's Top 10 public law schools."
