Penn State has taken a major step toward reuniting its two separately accredited law schools into one.
The American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education has given conditional approval for the university to combine Penn State Law at University Park and Penn State Dickinson Law in Carlisle as a single accredited law school with two locations.
Under the plan first put forward by the university in 2023, the reunited law school will be called Penn State Dickinson Law, with its primary campus in Carlisle and University Park serving as an additional location. Danielle Conway, current Penn State Dickinson Law dean, will lead the unified school.
“Unifying Penn State’s two outstanding law schools will provide more robust opportunities to meet the University’s land-grant mission, which includes wisely investing resources to bolster the core values of teaching and learning, knowledge creation and dissemination and civic engagement and responsibility,” Conway said in a statement.
The ABA’s conditional approval allows the single school to enroll a graduating class of 2028. It will operate as a unified law school under conditional status until final approvals are received from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and the U.S. Department of Education.
From 2006 to 2014, Penn State Dickinson School of Law operated as one school with two campuses before being split into separate accredited law schools, a move a university official said at the time would allow them to “more flexibly respond to the needs of law students entering a rapidly changing legal profession.”
University President Neeli Bendapudi recommended in November 2022 that they return to a single accredited school and later established the panel to develop recommendations. Dozens of Penn State Law faculty members signed a letter urging the university to maintain a significant law school presence at University Park.
According to the university, the reunification panel and an ad hoc committee considered “voluminous feedback from stakeholders, including students, staff, faculty, alumni and employers,” before delivering recommendations for a single school with two campuses.
“Maintaining our focus on continued excellence in legal education reflects our commitment to our mission, both through the success of our law students and the impact they go on to have on the legal profession and the world,” Bendapudi said in a statement on Monday. “Uniting the best of both of our existing programs into a single law school allows Penn State to continue realizing this mission, empowering our law students, and fostering continued greatness in the study and practice of law.”
Bendapudi said in 2022 that concentrating resources would “build a stronger law school” would result in “significant savings over time.”
