Kent McKeever of Water Mill Dies February 19

Kent McKeever, 72, former director of the Arthur W. Diamond Law Library at the Columbia Law School, died from complications of pancreatic cancer on Feb 19, 2025.

Kent McKeever was born on Sept 6, 1952, the third son (of six) among the nine siblings of Chris and Kay McKeever of Water Mill, LI, NY. He attended local schools and opted to attend a state college, so he would not graduate in debt as his older siblings did.

Incredibly well read on a wealth of topics, Kent majored in theater design and minored in Russian while attending SUNY Oswego. His first job was as stage manager of the long-running, popular, downtown show, ‘The Fantastiks.’ He found working in theater in New York City did not pay well enough to afford rents in Manhattan and decided to attend law school, choosing Louisiana State Law School (LSU) so he could learn about the Napoleonic Code as well as common law. There, in Baton Rouge, he was awarded the Class of 1950, Board of Supervisor’s, and Tullis-Herget Scholarships.

Kent was interested in many fields and chose an eclectic range of interests which he explored on his frequent trips around the world. He was equally at home in the realms of horse racing and car racing, though he neither rode a horse nor drove a car. He attended Mets ball games, but never took part in sports himself.

He was quite knowledgeable about the arts. He sketched, painted and drew landscapes and portraits of people as well as hedgehogs and horses and, of late, dazzle (war) ships. Kent loved opera, museums and good food.

Wry and humorous, he was always tossing puns hither and thither, some so obscure it would take a full minute to catch on. Not only was he brilliant and kind, wise and generous, he just loved his life and made sure everyone around him was enjoying themselves too! His motto for simple living: “rent, work for someone else and take public transportation.”

But his greatest interest was the law, its history and the impact on individuals, on groups, on countries, on world situations. While studying law at LSU, he became more intrigued by the scholarly aspects of the law and immediately enrolled in the LSU Library program with the idea of becoming a law librarian at a law school.

After graduating in 1980 with a JD and an MLS and passing the bar in Louisiana, he came back to the city he loved, New York, where he was immediately hired by Fordham Law School as their reference librarian. A year later he was hired by Columbia Law School as their International, Foreign and Comparative Law Librarian, providing services to legal scholars and lawyers from across the globe while Columbia provided him with an apartment. What could be better than that, having an apartment overlooking Riverside Park…for life. His career began.

Onward he moved, becoming the head of collections, then the assistant director of the Columbia Law Library. As the Associate Law Librarian he ensured that the law school library had the very best integrated computer system, for researching and retrieving information.

In 1996 he was appointed Director, heading up the third largest law library in America. Not only did he improve the collection by acquiring old and new legal texts and books, he ushered the library into the tech world ensuring speed, accuracy and access for all patrons. The Arthur W. Diamond Law Library probably has the world’s largest collection of law books on horse racing!

Throughout his career, McKeever participated in various programs, occasionally teaching or speaking at symposia in places like Leiden in the Netherlands. He participated in many overseas conferences and seminars, continuing to learn much about international law on these jaunts.

As a consultant, he provided on-site assessment of law libraries, focusing on what books and texts should be included for places like Beijing University to improve their collections, so their scholars would have access to a greater understanding of international law in the People’s Republic of China. Twice, he flew to Kazakhstan with the American Legal Consortium for an on-site assessment and recommendations for law library acquisition and management.

Kent learned from those he was teaching, a constant exchange of information. He spent a couple of months at the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law in Lausanne advising them on strengthening their United States collection, while learning of the intricacies of their acquisition procedures and of the complexities of legal databases throughout Europe.

After he retired in 2019, he was able to concentrate on a lifelong interest: tontines. Ever since his father Christopher K. McKeever, also an attorney, pointed out to him as a small boy that a rural ballfield in Flanders, NY, was owned by a tontine, he was intrigued by this very early financial instrument. His book on tontines, written over the past five years, was so complex that PanMcMillan Publishing House divided the book into two separate volumes which will be published later this year.

While traveling, he often enjoyed going to the opera after attending race meets in London, Prague, Paris, Dublin, Belfast, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Edinburgh, Hong Kong and Bridgetown, Barbados. Racetracks, museums, operas, Kent lived a wonderful well-rounded life. This brilliant bon vivant enjoyed life to the fullest. He will be missed by all that knew and loved him.

Kent is survived by his partner, Roberta Pilette, and his eight siblings: Chris (Nona), Kilda, Clare (Danny), Robert (Trina), Daniel (Cindy), Matthew (Dawn), Jocelyn, and Colin (Maura). He was an amusing, generous uncle to: Caity-did, Liz, and Chris McKeever, TJ, Eileen, Guinevere, and Ben Weckerle, Dylan Sanders, Alex, Aidan and Cal McKeever, Alexandra and Loic McKeever, Simone Sanchez, Ronan and Maeve McKeever.

There will be a memorial service at Columbia Law School. In lieu of flowers, a donation may be made to Broadway Community, Isaac Ablerstein, 601 West 114th St, Basement, NY, NY 10025 or directly on line at: broadwaycommunity.org.