Trevor Nagel a global contract lawyer in USA but always in contact with Adelaide and the university cricket club
Based in the United States as an international contract lawyer, Trevor Nagel kept in regular contract with his friends at Adelaide University Cricket Club.
Image courtesy Adelaide University Cricket Club
Dr Trevor Nagel was named by the Wall Street Journal in New York as one of the world’s top 10 contract lawyers in IT (information technology) and global outsourcing. He was propelled to this global legal success on the back of his first venture into real-world law: fighting to keep his beloved Adelaide University Cricket Club in the South Australian Cricket Association competition.
Nagel was born in 1950 in Salisbury when it was a village north of Adelaide and his father owned a small block of shops on John Street. As a boy, Nagel was struck down by polio and confined in plaster to a bed wheeled around the home. To help his recovery, Nagel’s parents bought a swing he could push to develop his withered muscles. This led to a unique rocking action and his long-time nickname “Bobber”.
Nagel recovered to the extent of winning a cricket scholarship to King’s College (now Pembroke School). He took a first-class degree in law from Adelaide University while playing cricket for its club. A highlight was premiership success for the university's C Grade team he captained in 1973-74.
Academically, Nagel went on to be a professor at Sydney University Law School and the Elton Mayo School of Management at the University of South Australia. Nagel studied his masters at Chicago University in 1980 and later at Harvard University where he was the Knox Fellow (selected for “leadership, character, judgment and a devotion to the democratic ideal”) and graduated in 1984 with a doctorate in juridical science.
He joined leading Boston law firm Palmer and Dodge and soon became a partner. He eventually settled as a partner at prestigious firm White and Case in Washington DC and was a member of the International Bar Association’s global technology group. His major clients included McDonald’s, Nokia and the World Bank.
Nagel travelled extensively with his work, including being seconded to Adelaide to advise the South Australian government on the outsourcing of SA Water in 1996.
He regularly returned to Adelaide to visit his elder sister, Adelaide ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) broadcaster Paula Nagel, as well revisiting the University Oval and the friends from the club he helped keep alive with then-club president and future judge Nick Birchall. He also was a lifelong Port Adelaide Football Club fan.
Never losing his booming Australian accent, Nagel also had broad collection of contemporary Australian art at his home in Bethesda, north of Washington DC. He was a member of the Royal Academy in London and loved Wagner and Mahler. He died after complications from spinal surgery in 2021.
