Robert and Joan Clifford give DePaul $30 million, and its law school will carry his name

DePaul University alumni Robert and Joan Clifford have given $30 million to its College of Law, which will be renamed the Robert A. Clifford College of Law, the university announced on October 26.

Robert Clifford is the founder and senior partner of Clifford Law Offices, a Chicago firm that handles personal injury and wrongful death cases, and a DePaul life trustee. He earned a business degree from DePaul in 1973 and his law degree in 1976; Joan Clifford graduated from DePaul's College of Education in 1972. The gift counts toward Mission: Forward, DePaul's $650 million campaign.

What does the $30 million pay for?

The gift creates a trial advocacy center and an endowment for the law school. The university lists these parts:

• The Robert A. Clifford Trial Advocacy, Litigation, and Negotiation Center, for skills training and national mock trial and negotiation competitions.
• Clifford Excellence Scholarships for high-achieving students.
• Clifford Distinguished Faculty Fellows, a three-year program with research support and a mini symposium.
• Continued support for the Clifford Symposium on Tort Law & Social Policy, plus priority needs such as technology and seed money for new programs.

DePaul did not say how the $30 million is split among these uses or when the new name takes effect.

How long have the Cliffords supported the school?

For more than three decades. The timeline below is our own compilation from the university's announcement and The DePaulia, the student newspaper, which reported the gift on October 27.

By our arithmetic, the gift equals about 4.6% of the Mission: Forward goal. DePaul did not report the campaign's current total.

"This extraordinary gift honors Bob's distinguished career while shaping the future of legal education at DePaul," said DePaul President Robert Manuel. Geoffrey Rapp, dean of the College of Law, said, "This extraordinary investment will help define the future of legal education at DePaul."

What other schools can learn

In our view, the gift shows how a long run of smaller, named commitments can lead to a naming gift: a chair, then a symposium, then a scholar program, then the school itself. Law schools have drawn several large gifts this month, including Morgan and Helen Chu's $31.4 million to Harvard Law School. Naming terms, and what happens if they change, are worth putting in writing, as we noted in a restricted gift is a promise.