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Professor Jim Cox was the first in his family to earn a college degree, attending a junior college before receiving a full scholarship to Arizona State University. As a freshman, he wrote a note to his mother that he has kept and reads often.

“The letter says that if I could spend the rest of my life on a college campus, I’d be happy,” Cox said. “Not many people can say that’s their ambition when they’re 18 years old.”

After earning his JD from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law (now UC Law San Francisco) and an LLM from Harvard University School of Law, Cox embarked on an academic career that brought him to Duke Law School in 1979 where he’s been a faculty member for more than 45 years.  

Cox and his wife recently made a substantial gift establishing the Jim and Bonnie Cox Law Scholarship Fund as a way of signaling their support for the community they love.   

“What better way to send a message to everybody in the community that you believe in it?” he said. “It’s like a chef eating his or her own cooking. It’s good to signal to people that we care about the enterprise, and that we do eat our own cooking.”   

The Coxes’ gift was matched by a grant from The Duke Endowment Scholarship and Public Interest Assistance Challenge. David Schwarz JD ’88 and Julie Schwarz also gave a substantial gift in Cox’s honor that was matched by The Duke Endowment challenge grant. 

“If a teacher’s accomplishments can be measured by the influence he exerted on his students, Jim Cox would rank somewhere between Baseball Hall of Famers Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson, making him the Grover Cleveland Alexander of Duke Law School,” Schwarz said.

“What better way to celebrate his legacy than to enable deserving students to reap the benefits of a learning institution Jim and Bonnie helped to build?”

Cox is the only faculty member to have received the Duke Bar Association’s student-voted Distinguished Teaching Award three times.  

He is also a prolific and widely celebrated scholar of corporate and securities law, market regulation, and corporate governance.

“Jim’s scholarship has been broadly influential in so many ways,” said Deborah A. DeMott, his long-time colleague at the Law School.  

“His casebook on securities regulation, along with his numerous articles, helped shape how that field is understood and how it’s taught to law students. Jim also developed highly productive collaborations with other scholars, often using multi-disciplinary methodologies to delve into the ways courts apply and shape the law. He’s an exemplar of a thoughtful and highly productive scholar.”  

Cox said he and his wife hope the scholarship created from their gift will enable its recipients to pursue careers aligned with their values and desired lifestyle. Coming to Duke, he said, allowed him and Bonnie to pursue lives of intellectual inquiry and raise a family in a welcoming and collegial environment.

“I’m grateful to Duke for giving me the chance to pursue my dream.”  

The Coxes have paid the favor forward by giving consistently over the years to law student scholarships, community funds, and the J. Michael Goodson Law Library. In fact, their first gift was using $500 that came with the 1987 Distinguished Teaching Award to establish the library’s Cox Legal Fiction Collection. They made their most substantial donation after realizing the Duke Endowment challenge grant would double its impact.  

The combined generosity of the Coxes, the Schwarzes, and the Duke Endowment is already providing substantial tuition scholarship funds but Cox, who has long helped oversee stewardship of university assets, said the value will grow rapidly with additional contributions. 

“I said to Bonnie, ‘It’s now or never. This gift won’t have to grow over many years to be noticeable,” Cox said, adding that he hopes Duke Law alumni who remember him fondly will be inspired to contribute, as David Schwarz has.

“People do make gifts to the Law School from time to time to honor me. It would be wonderful if others could pile in,” he said. “This isn’t about celebrating the Coxes; it’s about celebrating Duke Law, its great culture and the wonderful university it is part of. We’ve had opportunities to go other places and to move on, and I’m glad we chose to stay here. This is home.”