Pritzker family donates $100M to Northwestern Law School

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Northwestern University School of Law has received a $100 million gift from alumnus J.B. Pritzker and his wife, M.K. Pritzker, school officials announced Thursday.

The 156-year-old school will be renamed Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.

The donation, which is the largest single gift to a law school in the country, will support scholarships, public interest initiatives, entrepreneurship and multidisciplinary education, school officials said.

An entrepreneur and venture capitalist, J.B. Pritzker received his J.D. from Northwestern Law in 1993. He is co-founder and managing partner of Pritzker Group.

As part of gift, the Law School's Entrepreneurship Law Center will be permanently endowed and renamed as the Donald Pritzker Entrepreneurial Law Center, honoring J.B. Pritzker's father, who was co-founder and chief executive of Hyatt Hotels Corporation.

J.B. Pritzker's grandfather, Nicholas J. Pritzker, immigrated to Chicago in 1881 and grew up poor, and eventually built a successful law practice.

The gift will support several social justice centers at Northwestern Law School, including the Center on Wrongful Convictions, the Children and Family Justice Center, the Center on International Human Rights, the Environmental Law Center and other key programs to improve civil society and implement justice.