For Faye Katt and Ganesh Natarajan, both JD ’90, Washington University Law shaped their lives before classes even began. Their first semester, the pair met in the registration line.
“Faye brought her 13- or 14-year-old cousin with her,” Natarajan recalls with a laugh. “I wondered if he was the Doogie Howser of law. I thought, if this teenage kid is registering for law school, I have no chance.”
Natarajan and Katt ended up in the same subsection of the class, and 37 years later, they are happily married and reside in Chicago. Last year, they pledged $250,000 to endow the Faye L. Katt and Ganesh Natarajan Scholarship, which will create opportunities for students with financial need in the School of Law. The scholarship supports Make Way: Our Student Initiative, a fundraising effort to increase student financial assistance and create a best-in-class student experience.
The gift also received matching funds from the WashULaw Opportunity Challenge established by University Trustee Alicia McDonnell, JD ’95, in 2023. The challenge provides a dollar-to-dollar match to donors who make new commitments of $250,000 or more — up to $500,000 per gift—for an endowed scholarship or to support the law school’s Summer Public Interest Program.
Natarajan, who emigrated from India three years prior to starting law school, personally understands the value of financial support. “I would not have made it to WashU had I not gotten a scholarship,” he says. “It’s that simple.”
The couple hope that their scholarship will make a difference in the lives of limited-income students in the St. Louis area and globally. “You don’t have to go all the way to India to find someone who needs help,” Natarajan says. “Faye comes from a small town in southern Missouri. There are smart kids there who would love to come to WashU but need some financial assistance, just like I did.”
Generous financial aid is vital for the School of Law to compete for the most highly qualified applicants. “Let’s face it, students with high LSAT scores and high GPAs are going to have options for where they go to law school,” Katt says. “Scholarships help WashU bring in the absolute brightest candidates.”
Take the challenge
The WashULaw Opportunity Challenge provides a dollar-to-dollar match to law school donors who make new commitments of $250,000 or more — up to $500,000 per gift — for an endowed scholarship or for the Summer Public Interest Program.
The challenge supports WashU’s Make Way: Our Student Initiative, a fundraising effort to help build financial resources for scholarships, fellowships, and a best-in-class student experience.
Empowering service-driven careers
Scholarships also empower graduates to choose careers based on passion and service to society without worrying about educational debt. Alicia McDonnell witnessed firsthand the influence of law school debt on graduates pursuing careers in government and public interest law.
McDonnell earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester then worked in Boston as a white-collar crime and public corruption investigator and as a victim-witness advocate. She later attended law school at WashU and returned to Boston, where she was an assistant district attorney. Many of her colleagues had to leave their roles in government because salaries were not high enough for early-career employees to repay their student loans.
“I could see the heartbreak in their eyes,” McDonnell says. “They wanted nothing more than to continue working in the district attorney’s office and serve their community, but they couldn’t afford to. It’s an important career, and you should want your best and brightest going into that profession instead of having to choose other fields for financial reasons.”
This reality motivated McDonnell, now a self-employed attorney and real estate investor in St. Louis, to pledge $2 million to create the WashULaw Opportunity Challenge, which helps law school donors amplify the impact of their giving.
Katt and Natarajan say that the challenge spurred them to establish an endowed scholarship. “The fact that there was this opportunity to double our gift was a trigger for us,” Katt says. “It made us commit.”
McDonnell has been a WashU donor since graduation and remains involved with the university to this day. Over the years, she has supported various areas of the law school, including scholarships and the WashU Prosecutor’s Clinic. She served as vice chair for scholarships for Leading Together: The Campaign for Washington University and is currently vice chair of the School of Law National Council.
“Paying it forward is a great way to show gratitude for the blessings in life you have received,” McDonnell says. “Scholarships enable law students to choose meaningful careers that help solve some of society’s challenges, even if those careers may not be as financially lucrative as other options.”
Formative foundations
Before coming to WashU, Katt completed a bachelor’s degree in business administration at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and Natarajan earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Mumbai and MBAs from the Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies in Pune, India, and Brigham Young University.
Natarajan’s experience as a recent immigrant at WashU was formative. “I learned a lot of things beyond the classroom, like figuring out social graces,” he says. “I met students from all over the country. It was a nice little melting pot in the law school.”
Katt recalls the university’s collaborative culture as one of its best qualities. “We were competitive and academically rigorous, and at the same time, people didn’t want to do well at the expense of others,” Katt says. “Everyone was generous, sharing notes and outlines when you needed them.”
I would not have made it to WashU had I not gotten a scholarship. It’s that simple.
Ganesh Natarajan, JD ’90
After graduation, the two moved to Chicago and worked at top law firms. Natarajan specialized in international mergers and acquisitions and traveled to India often for work. Several years later Katt joined the health-care company Baxter International, where she became one of the youngest vice presidents at a Fortune 500 company. Her career took her through various roles in human resources and information technology.
In 2001, Natarajan founded Mindcrest, a global legal-services startup that performed litigation, contract, and compliance services for law firms and corporations. In 2009, Katt joined the company, which eventually grew to 1,200 employees, as chief human resources officer.
The couple retired in 2022, three years after selling the firm. Natarajan still teaches part-time at DePaul University, while Katt engages in professional coaching.
Throughout the years, they have remained closely involved with WashU as donors and leaders. The pair are longtime supporters of the law school’s Annual Fund, annual law scholarships, and the Summer Public Interest Fellowship. In 2019, they received a distinguished alumni award from Washington University Law, and they have served on the school’s national council since 2022. In 2024, they joined the Chicago Regional Cabinet. Natarajan also sits on WashU’s Alumni Board of Governors.
Central to it all has been their personal experience of the value of a Washington University Law education.
“Our world is facing a boatload of thorny social issues,” Katt says. “Law school teaches people to think deeply in a way that is needed to solve these problems. Despite the issues we face, I’m more hopeful than ever about the future every time I visit WashU and meet with students.”
