PHILADELPHIA -- The University of Pennsylvania Law School has received a $2 million endowed professorship from the Independence Foundation, a private, not-for-profit, philanthropic organization serving the Philadelphia area. The gift is allocated for the Theodore K. Warner Jr. Professorship in Business Law, in honor of the current secretary and treasurer and past president of the Foundation and Penn Law alumnus.

"The gift directly promotes the Law School's leadership education program," said Colin S. Diver, Dean and Bernard G. Segal Professor of Law. Dean Diver said that he expects creation of the Warner Professorship to strengthen ongoing collaboration between the Law School and the Wharton School.

Mr. Warner led a distinguished career in business law. A 1931 graduate of Penn's College of Arts and Sciences, he was president of the Penn Law School Class of 1934, graduating cum laude. He spent more than 30 years in the legal and financial departments at Pennsylvania Railroad (later Penn Central). He was vice president of taxes from 1958 to 1968, vice president of accounting and taxes from 1968 to 1969 and vice president of corporate administration from 1969 to 1970. From 1968 to 1970, he was also president of Canada Southern Railway and vice president of Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, both subsidiaries of Pennsylvania Railroad. Later, he spent two years of counsel at Duane, Morris & Heckscher before joining the firm of Harper and Driver in 1975, where he remains of counsel.

Mr. Warner has been a member of the Foundation's board of directors since 1991. The Foundation, established in 1932, has long promoted health-care research. It has also established the Independence Foundation Public Interest Fellowship program to fund attorneys working in the public interest providing legal services to disadvantaged people in Philadelphia.

For more information, contact the Independence Foundation at (215) 985-4009.