As promised earlier this year, Penn State has formed a panel to help the university form plans for a unified law school.
On Thursday, the university announced the formal creation of the 14-member panel, which consists of students, staff, faculty and alumni. Starting with an inaugural meeting on Jan. 25, the group will develop recommendations to reunite Penn State’s two, separately accredited law schools, Penn State Law at University Park and Penn State Dickinson Law.
The panel’s creation comes following the Nov. 29 recommendation from President Neeli Bendapudi to reunite the two law schools into a single entity with a primary location in Carlisle. Penn State Law operated as a one-school, dual-campus law school from 2006 to 2014 before splitting in 2015.
The panel features seven representatives each from the two law schools. The process began with approximately 700 nominations until finalists were selected based on their experience with the law schools, capacity to engage in important discussions and ability to collaborate to chart the law schools’ future, Penn State said.
According to the university, the panel’s Penn State Dickinson Law representatives are:
- Ezza Ahmed, 3L student
- Hubert Gilroy, adjunct professor of law and shareholder, Martson Law Offices
- Dermot Groome, professor of law and Harvey A. Feldman Distinguished Faculty Scholar
- Medha Makhlouf, Elsie de R. and Samuel P. Orlando Distinguished Professor, associate professor of law and founding director of the Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic
- Doris Orner, financial officer
- Samantha Prince, assistant professor of law and director of legal analysis and writing
- Bekah Saidman-Krauss, associate dean for admissions and financial aid
Penn State Law’s representatives, meanwhile, are:
- Nicole Chong, associate dean and professor of legal writing
- Amanda DiPolvere, associate dean for enrollment, career development, planning and transition
- Kit Kinports, professor of law and Polisher Family Distinguished Faculty Scholar
- Curtis Toll, managing shareholder of the Philadelphia office of Greenberg Traurig
- Michele Vollmer, associate dean for clinics and experiential learning, clinical professor of law and director of the Veterans and Servicemembers Legal Clinic
- Taylor Washington, 3L student
- Kim Wyatt, director of finance and administration
Danielle Conway, dean of Dickinson Law, and Victor Romero, interim dean of Penn State Law, will serve as the panel’s chair and vice chair, respectively. In a statement, the university said Conway and Romero collaborated to select panel membership to “ensure fair representation from both law schools.”
“I want to thank everyone who submitted a nomination to serve on this panel. The volume of nominations is indicative of the importance of the work that this panel will undertake over the next five months,” Conway said in a statement. “We know that it is not going to be an easy task to bring these two tremendous law schools back together, but our work will build on the strengths of both Penn State Dickinson Law and Penn State Law to create a future for an even stronger, single law school that expands opportunities for law students, staff, faculty and alumni and better serves our communities across Pennsylvania.”
The panel’s two key priorities are “to forge a path forward for a reunited law school that is in the best interest of the institution and to provide as much stability as possible for current students, staff and faculty at both law schools,” Conway and Romero said.
“As we look to the future as a single law school, we are equally focused on minimizing the impacts of the reunification process on our law school communities,” Romero said in a statement. “In particular, we will be maintaining the commitment Penn State has made to providing our current students — as well as those joining us in the fall — with the world-class legal education they were promised on the campus where they enrolled.”
The newly created panel is expected to deliver draft recommendations to Bendapudi’s desk by the end of April. She’ll later work with administrators and other experts, send comments back to the panel and receive final recommendations by the end of May.
Ultimately, Bendapudi will select the university’s new law school structure and present it to the Penn State Board of Trustees for approval. Plans will also require approval from the American Bar Association.
First announced in November, Penn State’s push to reunite its law schools came as the university was searching for a new Penn State Law dean — a move that was canceled with Bendapudi’s announcement of the proposal.
While the law schools’ future remains unclear, current students and those enrolling in fall 2023 will continue to receive full legal education at their campus of enrollment, including bar preparation and job placement services, the university said.
Following Penn State’s proposed merger of the two law schools, more than 40 Penn State Law faculty members signed a letter urging that the university maintain a “significant” law school presence at University Park. In their writing, signed faculty members worried that the schools’ unification would substantially diminish or eliminate offerings at Penn State’s flagship campus.
