Penn State may reunite its two law schools in Carlisle and University Park

As Pennsylvania State University continues to face a deficit, president Neeli Bendapudi recommended Tuesday a reunification of its two law schools, one in Carlisle and the other at University Park, which were split just eight years ago.

Penn State Dickinson Law in Carlisle — the oldest law school in Pennsylvania — would remain as the primary site, led by its current dean, Danielle M. Conway, Bendapudi said. Over time, she said, the move would generate “significant savings” — though she declined to project just how much — that could be pumped into other academic programs.

While savings is a factor — the university has pledged to close a $140 million deficit over the next two years — it’s not the primary factor, she said.

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“As I started to look at it along with the senior leadership team here, it became increasingly evident that the two-law school model where we have two units competing with one another under the Penn State umbrella is not the best approach,” Bendapudi said. “Concentrating our resources would allow us to build a much stronger law school and actually offer students a much more robust experience.”

Whether any law school programming would remain at University Park or what would happen with the imposing, $60 million Lewis Katz Building, erected in 2009 as a home for the school, is uncertain. She is setting up a committee to study how the combination would occur, with a report due in six months. The plan would be subject to approval by Penn State’s board of trustees and the American Bar Association, and even after that approval, she estimated it would take 18 months to two years for the change to take effect.

Matthew Schuyler, chair of the trustees, said in a statement that the board endorses the process outlined by Bendapudi.

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“The board supports the consideration of reuniting our two law schools into one, as this outcome would likely enhance the university’s legal education offerings, while helping to achieve the broader goal of being effective stewards of our resources,” he said.

The recommendation from Bendapudi comes six months into her tenure, but trustees have been discussing the two law schools for a while and talked about it during her interview process, she said. Penn State Law also had been interviewing candidates for dean this fall, and she decided it would not be ethical to hire someone, knowing that a consolidation was being contemplated.

She announced the plan Tuesday afternoon at a town hall for Penn State Law students, faculty, and staff.

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Penn State acquired the Dickinson School of Law in 1997, for the first time giving the state flagship university a law school. It opened a second campus of Dickinson Law at University Park in 2006, with the two operating under one umbrella. Then in 2015, after a plan to discontinue offering first-year courses at the Dickinson campus was rejected by Gov. Tom Corbett and the Cumberland County Commissioners, the university created the two separate law schools.

Penn State Dickinson Law, which enrolls 282 full-time students and has annual tuition of $53,558, placed 58th among best law schools in the most recent U.S. News rankings. The school has 73 full-time faculty and staff. Meanwhile, Penn State Law, the University Park school, with 553 full-time students and annual tuition of $51,648, finished 64th. It has 109 full-time faculty and staff.

But with a highly competitive marketplace — Pennsylvania has nine law schools — and a decline in high school graduates expected to worsen in coming years, that model no longer works, Bendapudi said. The other law schools in the state are at Drexel, Temple, Villanova, the University of Pennsylvania, Duquesne, Widener, and the University of Pittsburgh.

“Combining our resources might position us for being much more competitive in this space,” she said.

Law school enrollment nationally has declined precipitously from its peak in 2010. Though applications surged in 2021, the most recent application cycle in 2022 showed a decrease of 11.7% from last year and a slight decline from 2020, according to the American Bar Association Journal.

The panel charged with studying how the combination would occur will be chaired by Conway, the Dickinson law dean, and vice chaired by law professor Victor Romero, who will become interim dean Jan. 1, with faculty, staff, students, and alumni from both as members, Bendapudi said.

Current students and those admitted for fall 2023 will get their education on their current campus, she said. The School of International Affairs, which is currently part of the law school at University Park, will remain intact but moved to another home.