Financier Donates $25 Million to Law School

The Wasserstein family has donated $25 million to Harvard Law School for the construction of a new academic and student center, the school announced today, in what is the second-largest donation ever received by the school.

The donation gives a boost to both the Law School’s $400 million capital campaign—bringing the total raised to $342 million—and the construction of the new 250,000 square-foot facility, two of Dean Elena Kagan’s top priorities.

The Wassersteins are long-time donors to both the Law School and Harvard Business School. The family’s most prominent member, Lazard CEO Bruce J. Wasserstein, is an alumnus of both institutions and has been a major benefactor of HLS. He was one of 11 alumni who gave $5.1 million to the school in 2003. In addition, the Wasserstein family has endowed both a professorship and public-interest law fellowship at the law school.

Bruce Wasserstein is also a close friend of former Law School Dean Robert C. Clark, who has served on the boards of several companies controlled by Wasserstein, including Lazard, Maybelline, and American Lawyer Media Holdings.

It is the second-largest donation ever received by the school, after a $30 million gift by Finn M. W. Caspersen, the chair of the school's capital campaign, according to Law School spokesman Michael A. Armini.

“This new gift will have a dramatic and long-lasting impact on the Law School, and particularly on the educational experience of our students,” Kagan said in a statement.

Work will begin on the new Wasserstein Hall—slated to be completed in 2011—this summer with the demolition of the Everett Street parking garage, a structure Kagan has called one of the biggest eye sores on the Law School’s campus. The project will also involve demolishing Wyeth Hall, a dormitory, moving two houses further up Mass. Ave., and tearing down the eastern lobe of Pound Hall to create a courtyard between the new building and the Harkness Commons.

—Staff writer Paras D. Bhayani can be reached at pbhayani@fas.harvard.edu