The Dickson Poon School of Law is the law school of King's College London, itself part of the federal University of London, and serves as one of the nine schools of study within the KCL. It is situated on the Strand in the East Wing of Somerset House, in close proximity to the Royal Courts of Justice and the four Inns of Court in the heart of London's legal quarter. Among the most prestigious and selective law schools in the world, is currently ranked in the global top 15 and fifth in both Europe and the UK.
Following a donation of £20 million by Dickson Poon in 2012, the school was renamed in his honour. The current dean of the school is Professor Gillian Douglas.
Law has been taught at King's College London since 1831. It was originally taught within the Senior Department. In 1839, teaching transferred to the Department of General Literature and Science in response to the need for a greater differentiation of the syllabus for students of the Senior Department at the King's. Law became part of a broad faculty of subjects and classes that provided a core liberal syllabus in the arts and sciences available to all students of King's. From 1893, it was known as the Division of Laws and Economics under the Faculty of Arts.
The Faculty of Laws was founded in 1909 and became known as the School of Law in 1991. The school took its current name in 2012 in recognition of Hong Kong businessman Sir Dickson Poon, who made a gift of £20 million to the school. It is thought to be the largest-ever donation to a British or European law faculty at the time.
The school is in the heart of legal London. It was previously housed in a row of buildings adjacent to the Strand and Embankment along the River Thames. On 7 December 2009, it was announced that the school would relocate to the East Wing of Somerset House, a prominent example of neo-classical architecture, designed by Sir William Chambers in the late eighteenth century on the site of an earlier Tudor palace. Negotiations for the new lease are said to have taken some 180 years.
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