Law grad gives $2m. for center

The Law School will soon have a new venue for a variety of academic and social gatherings, thanks to a $2 million gift from 1972 Law graduate Paul Levy and his wife Karen. School officials announced plans this summer to use the funds to establish a new facility -- to be named the Paul and Karen Levy Conference Center -- in Sharswood Hall, the south reading room of the old Biddle Law Library. According to Law Dean Colin Diver, the Levys made the commitment in May and have already put $700,000 into the project. The remaining $1.3 million will be paid over the next two years, and the conference center is expected to be completed in the fall of 1999. Although the Law School originally came up with the idea to build a new conference center, Diver said the suggestion "appealed a great deal" to the Levys. The renovations, which will be done mainly between March and November of 1999, will be in conjunction with the overall restoration of the newly-named Silverman Hall, formerly known as Lewis Hall. In February, University Trustee and 1964 Penn Law graduate Henry Silverman made a $15 million donation to the school -- the largest gift ever given to an American law school. Between one-third and one-half of the gift will be used to restore Silverman Hall, the original Law School building on 34th Street between Sansom and Chestnut streets. The Levy facility will include a state-of-the-art lecture hall, a multi-purpose reception hall and a full-service kitchen. The conference center will be used on a day-to-day basis for regular law school classes, moot court sessions, guest lectures, conferences and symposia, as well as for social engagements like receptions, lunches and dinners. Currently, these kinds of activities are held at various places around the school, according to Diver, including the unrenovated Sharswood Hall, the moot courtroom on the first floor of Silverman Hall and the Great Hall area, also located on the first floor of Silverman Hall. "The Levy Conference Center will give the Penn Law School a superbly equipped and elegant facility to accommodate a variety of internal and external meetings, groups and conferences," Diver said in announcing the gift. Levy is managing general partner of Joseph Littlejohn & Levy, a turnaround firm established in 1988. He is also chairman and chief executive officer of Lancer Industries, a holding company whose main subsidiary makes high-precision gears and other gear systems. Levy lives in New York with his wife and two daughters. He is also a member of the Law School's Board of Overseers.

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