Karen Rabenau

Karen Rabenau ’89 earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in American studies from Hollins, where she was elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a Hollins Scholar, and received the Sarah McCutchen Cook Award for American studies.

Rabenau is a litigation attorney and counsel to Stevens Martin Vaughn & Tadych in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she focuses her practice in business litigation and communications law. Prior to joining Stevens Martin, she practiced for 26 years and was a partner with Twiggs Beskind Strickland & Rabenau in Raleigh and Research Triangle Park. Rabenau is recognized in Best Lawyers in America and North Carolina Super Lawyers for her work as a litigator. Rabenau earned her J.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Law, where she was a member of the Holderness Moot Court Invitational Team and one of two students in the second-year class to represent the Holderness Moot Court National Team in appellate advocacy.

Rabenau has served as a director for the North Carolina Bar Association (NCBA) Board of Governors and chaired the NCBA’s Litigation Section and Medico-Legal Liaison Committee. At Durham Academy, an independent K-12 college preparatory day school, Rabenau served for seven years as a trustee, chaired the board’s Learning Environment Committee during its 2015 Strategic Plan implementation and most recently a two-year commitment as chair of its board of trustees. She has previously served on the board of International Montessori School of North Carolina, a Spanish, French, and Mandarin immersion day school for pre- and elementary school students, as well as the board of Caring House, a nonprofit devoted to affordable housing for cancer treatment patients at Duke Cancer Institute.

Rabenau currently serves as a trustee for Hill Learning Center, a differentiated learning hub for students with learning and attention challenges, chairs the Durham Academy Capital Campaign Steering Committee, and serves as chair of the Friends Board at Duke University’s Nasher Museum of Art.