Alumnus gives Penn largest-ever law school donation

Henry Silverman's $15 million donation will fund external renovations and Law School programs. In the largest gift ever given to an American law school, University Trustee and 1964 Penn Law graduate Henry Silverman donated $15 million to the Penn Law School, University President Judith Rodin announced yesterday. The donation -- made official February 17 after about five months of discussion -- exceeded the previous top gift, a $14 million trust fund Coca Cola heir George Woodruff created for Mercer University's Walter F. George School of Law in 1987. It also became the largest outright gift -- or money readily available within three to five years -- to a law school, surpassing the $13 million Gus and Rita Hauser donated to the Harvard Law School in October 1994. "I am particularly gratified to make the gift and trust it will help both students and faculty build on the institution's rich history of academic excellence," Silverman, 57, said in a statement. Silverman -- the president and chief executive officer of Cendant Corp., a consumer- and business-services company -- holds stock options in the company valued at some $700 million. While other University schools and buildings have recently received much larger donations -- including Leonard Abramson's $100 million gift to Penn's Cancer Center last fall -- the largest previous gift to the Penn Law School had been an $8 million trust fund, according to University spokesperson Ken Wildes. Law School Dean Colin Diver added that "it's more common to get huge gifts [for] the other parts of the University." Diver attributed the relative lack of large law school donations to the fact that most lawyers, despite earning handsome salaries, do not accumulate the "liquefiable wealth that business people do" through stock ownership and executive posts in companies. But he added that he expected Silverman's gift to "raise the expectations for other donors." Because the gift sets a new standard and brings national attention to the University, it has "enormous meaning" for the Law School, Diver said. Between one-third and half of the gift will be used to restore and renovate the original Law School building on 34th Street between Sansom and Chestnut streets. The 98-year-old building, currently known as Lewis Hall, will be renamed the Henry R. Silverman Hall. Diver explained that the building renovations will be mostly external, including the reopening of the 34th Street entrance, which has been closed for more than a dozen years. Additionally, the lobby inside the building, known as the Great Hall, will be restored. Lewis Hall was renovated internally in 1996, when the Howard Gittis Law Clinic was created. The remaining half of the gift will be used to support an endowment for faculty support, legal scholarship and research. This includes the creation of an endowed chair for the field of corporate law. Diver explained that the endowment funding will be strongly connected to the Agenda for Excellence, the University's strategic plan to solidify its position as one of the world's premier research and educational institutions. As part of the Agenda, the Law School's main focus will be to develop nationally distinctive collaborative programs with the other professional schools of the University, Diver said. "We have a vision of legal education as preparation for leadership," he said, emphasizing that the combination of strong disciplinary and interdisciplinary study will best prepare law students for success in the ever-changing legal environment. Expanding the leadership focus, he explained, will involve hiring faculty with similar interests, creating new courses and developing collaborative research, all of which will be facilitated by the donation. Silverman also serves as a trustee for the New York University School of Medicine, the Hospital for Joint Diseases and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He was formerly the chief executive officer of HFS Inc., which merged with CUC International Inc. in 1997 to form Cendant. One of the 100 largest corporations in America, Cendant's functions include membership, travel and real estate services. The company is based in Stamford, Conn., and Parsippany, N.J. He lives in New York City.