$30 Million Gift Will Fuel Growth of Drexel's Earle Mack School of Law

Business Wire, April 30, 2008

PHILADELPHIA -- Drexel University's law school, which welcomed its inaugural class in August 2006, will be named in honor of philanthropist and alumnus Earle Mack, a businessman, arts advocate and former U.S. ambassador to Finland, at a campus ceremony May 1, President Constantine Papadakis announced.

A $30 million gift consists of $15 million from Mack with guarantees that an additional $15 million in new appropriations and funds will be contributed by Drexel and donors. The Earle Mack School of Law is the Keystone State's newest law school, first to open in Greater Philadelphia in more than 30 years and first established by a nationally ranked university in more than 25 years. This matching gift is the largest to a Pennsylvania law school and is among the top gifts to a U.S. law school.

A plan to establish a law school stemmed from efforts to further diversify Drexel's offerings after the University acquired medical, nursing and public health schools in 2002. Since that plan was put on the fast track in 2005, the Earle Mack School of Law has recruited its first two classes, its inaugural faculty and a dean, Roger J. Dennis, and employers for its cooperative education program, which gives students real-world professional experience.

The School received provisional accreditation from the American Bar Association in February -- in the shortest time frame possible.

Mack's gift will help Drexel Law build an identity that stands apart from other schools at a time when law and legal education are changing. Law school graduates are expected to hit the ground running. That's a benefit of cooperative education, which gives students the opportunity to augment classroom study with professional experience. About 100 employers have joined the School as cooperative education partners. Drexel's law school is one of only two in the country to integrate cooperative education.

Students gain additional real-world experience through the School's pro bono service program, which strives to educate them about their ethical responsibility to provide assistance and improve access to legal services throughout their careers.

Other distinguishing features of the School are its concentrations in cutting-edge, high-growth areas of the law. Those concentrations -- rooted in Drexel's traditional strengths in technology, business and medicine -- are intellectual property, health care and entrepreneurial business.