Claudia J. Edwards Gordon, aged 58, died after a long disease, lupus and allied challenges and finally cancer, at Virginia Hospital Center, Arlington, on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016, with doctors and nurses and her husband, John W. Gordon, by her side. She was a fourth-generation Georgia lawyer whose cause in life was to represent those who needed help.
She was preceded in death by her father, the late Robert Joel Edwards, and her younger brother, Robert Joel Edwards, Jr. She is survived by her mother, Mary Brannon Northcutt Edwards, Atlanta, and her sisters, Pamela Edwards Sharpe, Atlanta, and Katherine Edwards Volatile, M.D., Asheville, N.C., her nephews, Stokely and Ryan and niece Katherine Volatile, her cousin Samuel F. Roach, Ph.D., and her husband of 20 years, John W. Gordon, Alexandria.
Mrs. Gordon was born Nov. 8, 1957, in Crawford Long Hospital, Atlanta, the daughter of Robert J. Edwards and Mary Northcutt Edwards. Growing up just north of the Emory campus, she swam with the Dynamos and emerged in first place in state and Southeastern AAU meets in freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly. She was a graduate of The Westminster Schools, class of 1975, where she participated in a full array of student activities, to include captain of the drill team and fund-raising support for the Decatur Kiwanis Club with its commitment to the overseas medical missions of Project Concern in Southeast Asia and Mexico.
She graduated in 1979 from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where she was active in student government, the Pan-Hellenic Council, on the dean’s list, and was an intern with Merrill Lynch. She became the first woman elected president of the business majors’ honorary society, Delta Sigma Pi. Accepted into SMU’s JD-MBA program, she chose instead to attend her great grandfather’s school, Mercer Law, in Macon. There she became the first woman elected president of the honorary legal society of which her great grandfather had been a member, and passed the Georgia Bar while still a third-year law student. She joined the firm of Northcutt- Edwards, eventually achieving the rank of partner, and was active in Westminster, SMU, and Mercer alumni activities. Her focus as a plaintiff’s attorney was cases involving injury or death resulting from tractor-trailer accidents. In 1992 she gained the “AV Preeminent,” or “highest possible peer review rating in legal ability and ethical standards,” from Martindale Hubbell. She was a member of the Lawyers Club in Atlanta, as were her father and grandfather. In addition to her litigation work, she was an active presenter and program chair of Continuing Legal Education for the Georgia Trial Lawyers and the State Bar, and gave of her time to do pro bono legal work and to judge high school students’ moot court sessions.
When her husband accepted a position with the Marine Corps University at Quantico in summer 2001, she relocated to Northern Virginia. She served on the board of the Georgetown-based Civil Justice Foundation and as its executive director, planning conferences in Washington, Florida, California and other locations, until her illness compelled her doctors to take her off work. She was active in the Mount Vernon Yacht Club and remained a participant in the alumni organizations of the schools she attended, and supporting also her husband in the Rotary Club of Alexandria.
She will be greatly missed by friends, classmates, and surviving family. A visitation will be held from 5-8 p.m. Thursday, March 3, at Everly-Wheatley Funeral Home, 1500 West Braddock Road, Alexandria. The interment will be held at a date to be announced at Arlington National Cemetery. In lieu of flowers please send contributions to the American Cancer Society, PO Box 22478, Oklahoma City, OK 73123. A guest book may be found at www.everlywheatley.com.