Personal injury lawyer gets another namesake law school with $50 mln gift

Sept 8 (Reuters) – Philadelphia own personal injury lawyer Thomas Kline on Wednesday became the only residing lawyer to have two regulation educational facilities named for him.

Duquesne University announced a rebranding of its law faculty pursuing a $50 million motivation by Kline that it named the greatest gift in the university’s history. The Pittsburgh university is now identified as the Thomas R. Kline University of Law of Duquesne University.

Drexel University’s law college has also been the Thomas R. Kline School of Legislation since 2014, when Kline donated $50 million to the Philadelphia institution.

Kline graduated from Duquesne regulation in 1978 ahead of launching a prosperous vocation as a trial legal professional and co-founding injuries and malpractice law organization Kline & Spector, which has additional than 50 attorneys and 5 places of work.

The business secured an $8 billion verdict towards Johnson & Johnson in 2019 involving the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal. Kline has also represented events in litigation about the 2015 Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia that killed eight men and women and in the Penn Condition College Jerry Sandusky molestation scenario.

“I have extended been proud of my alma mater and have been joyful to have played a purpose in strengthening its future,” Kline claimed in an announcement of the donation and identify adjust.

Kline in 2017 gave Duquesne Regulation $7.5 million to establish a judicial schooling heart for Pennsylvania judges and court docket staff. His most current donation will fund scholarships, school grants for training and scholarship, bar planning and new clinics, the university mentioned.

Two legislation colleges are at present named for early 19th century U.S. Supreme Court docket Chief Justice John Marshall, while a third dropped his name in 2021 and an additional is weighing a comparable go right after new information and facts surfaced about the amount of slaves Marshall owned.

The law educational facilities at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Maryland each bear the Carey name adhering to donations from the W.P Carey Foundation, but they are named for unique deceased customers of the Carey loved ones.

Go through extra:

Yet another regulation college mulls name improve above slaveholding Supreme Courtroom justice

College of Florida Legislation receives another $40 million from namesake donor

Reporting by Karen Sloan

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