University of Richmond Law School Campaign Surpasses $6 Million Goal
July 12, 2002
The University of Richmond School of Law has concluded its Top Tier fundraising campaign, surpassing the $6 million goal.
The three-year effort ended with $6.17 million for merit scholarships, professorships and library resources, all designed to move Richmond into America's top 50 law schools, as ranked by various professional organizations and law school guidebooks.
The campaign's success comes in a year when the law school enjoyed a record number of applicants-1,861-and admitted its best-qualified first-year class in history. Just over 400 students attend the law school.
"What we have been doing has been working," said law school dean John Pagan. "The campaign gifts created three endowed professorships to bring top legal scholars and attorneys here to teach. New scholarship funds have attracted students whose LSAT scores and GPAs have had an immediate impact on our student selectivity. And, we added more volumes and volume-equivalents to the law library last year than any other Virginia law school."
Richmond moved up six places, from 81st to 75th, in April's U.S. News & World Report law school rankings. Pagan expects more progress next year.
"Our goals are straightforward and our purpose clear. We intend to be one of the finest law schools in the country. We will attract the highest caliber of students and develop exceptional practitioners through a superb faculty of great teachers and scholars, working in preeminent facilities with outstanding resources," he said.
Pagan said planning has begun for a second phase of the Top Tier initiative, and goals will include two additional endowed chairs and more merit scholarships.
"We recognize the impact scholarship funds have on a private law school, so that is where a large amount of attention will be focused in Phase II," Pagan said.
The lead gift of the campaign -- $2 million -- came from Russell C. Williams, former Virginia assistant attorney general and 1983 Richmond law graduate. Williams, of Hanover, Pa., designated the money to endow a professorship.
Several other law alumni made gifts in support of faculty and merit scholarships.
Pagan said the new John Marshall Scholarships program, a set of 12 $10,000 merit-based awards funded by the campaign, will attract students who could attend any law school in the country. Recipients still will have the opportunity to apply for need-based financial aid. The scholarships are expected to raise the quality of applicants and sharpen the academic atmosphere.