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First Female Attorney in the Oregon Office of the Legislative Counsel

Kathleen Beaufait ’52

March 11, 2025, in Salem, Oregon.

Kathleen Glory Beaufait, the first female attorney in the Oregon Office of the Legislative Counsel, was born in 1928 in Portland, Oregon. Her passion for law was rooted in her grandmother’s friendship with Mary Jane Spurlin, Oregon’s first female judge.

Both Spurlin’s profession and her striking red car intrigued Kathleen. “My father always claimed that it was the car that attracted me to the study of law more than it was anything else, but that was a family joke, although I did own a couple of red cars in my lifetime,” Kathleen recalled in a 2017 interview.

At Reed, Kathleen became an active participant in campus life. She managed the coffee shop in Commons and served as a dormitory advisor—and even found time to be a production assistant for a Reed College Players performance of Pygmalion.

With advising from Professor Charles McKinley [political science 1918–60], Kathleen wrote her thesis on Fred M. Vinson, the 13th chief justice of the United States. McKinley nurtured Kathleen’s interest in constitutionalism and state and local government, leading her to serve more than 30 years in the Office of the Legislative Council.

Despite the speedy and stressful working conditions of the capitol, Kathleen relished her work as a bill drafter and strove to remain nonpartisan. “It’s not up to me to say whether [a bill is] good or bad,” she later reflected.

In addition to her work at the Office of the Legislative Counsel, Kathleen was an adjunct professor at the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis and Clark College and did pro bono work with Marion-Polk Legal Aid. After her death, a statement from the Oregon State Capitol praised her ability to craft bills and earn legislators’ trust. She had made her mark on the capitol, a place she once called “more than just a building.”

Appeared in Reed magazine: Fall 2025

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