Private harm lawyer will get one other namesake regulation college with $50 mln present

REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

Sept 8 (Reuters) – Philadelphia private harm lawyer Thomas Kline on Wednesday grew to become the one residing legal professional to have two regulation faculties named for him.

Duquesne College introduced a rebranding of its regulation college following a $50 million dedication by Kline that it known as the most important present within the college’s historical past. The Pittsburgh college is now known as the Thomas R. Kline Faculty of Legislation of Duquesne College.

Drexel College’s regulation college has additionally been the Thomas R. Kline Faculty of Legislation since 2014, when Kline donated $50 million to the Philadelphia establishment.

Kline graduated from Duquesne regulation in 1978 earlier than launching a profitable profession as a trial legal professional and co-founding harm and malpractice regulation agency Kline & Spector, which has greater than 50 attorneys and 5 places of work.

The agency secured an $8 billion verdict in opposition to Johnson & Johnson in 2019 involving the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal. Kline has additionally represented events in litigation over the 2015 Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia that killed eight individuals and within the Penn State College Jerry Sandusky molestation case.

“I’ve lengthy been happy with my alma mater and have been completely satisfied to have performed a job in strengthening its future,” Kline stated in an announcement of the donation and identify change.

Kline in 2017 gave Duquesne Legislation $7.5 million to ascertain a judicial training heart for Pennsylvania judges and court docket personnel. His newest donation will fund scholarships, college grants for instructing and scholarship, bar preparation and new clinics, the college stated.

Two regulation faculties are at the moment named for early nineteenth century U.S. Supreme Court docket Chief Justice John Marshall, although a 3rd dropped his identify in 2021 and one other is weighing an identical transfer after new info surfaced in regards to the variety of slaves Marshall owned.

The regulation faculties on the College of Pennsylvania and the College of Maryland each bear the Carey identify following donations from the W.P Carey Basis, however they’re named for various deceased members of the Carey household.

Learn extra:

One other regulation college mulls identify change over slaveholding Supreme Court docket justice

College of Florida Legislation will get one other $40 million from namesake donor

Reporting by Karen Sloan

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