Evenson, attorney and Cuba scholar, dead at 69

Debra Evenson, a U.S. lawyer and Cuba scholar, has died. She was 69.

Her husband, Marc PoKempner, says Evenson died of cancer Aug. 17 at her home in Chicago.

Evenson was an authority on the legal system and institutions of Cuba. She was an attorney for 20 years with the New York firm Rabinowitz Boudin, which represents the Cuban government and its agencies and enterprises in the United States.

Michael Krinsky, a partner at Rabinowitz Boudin, says Evenson was crucial to the firm’s legal defense of Cuban sovereignty.

She taught at the University of Chicago Law School before joining the law faculty at DePaul University in Chicago, where she taught from 1980 to 1993.

She served as president of the National Lawyers Guild from 1988 to 1991.