Penn State Law, located in University Park, Pennsylvania, is one of two separately accredited law schools of the Pennsylvania State University. Penn State Law offers J.D., LL.M., and S.J.D. degrees. The school also offers a joint J.D./M.B.A. with the Smeal College of Business, a joint J.D./M.I.A. degree with the School of International Affairs, which is also located in the Lewis Katz Building, as well as joint degrees with other graduate programs at Penn State.
Penn State Law traces its roots to the founding of The Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Penn State and The Dickinson School of Law merged in 2000, and, until fall 2014, Penn State's Dickinson School of Law operated as a single law school with two campuses—one in Carlisle and one on Penn State's University Park campus in State College, Pennsylvania. The first class to attend the University Park campus was during the 2006-2007 academic year. In the summer of 2014, Penn State received approval from the American Bar Association to operate the two campuses as two separate and distinct law schools, both of which share the history of The Dickinson School of Law: Dickinson Law, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and Penn State Law, in University Park, Pennsylvania. In November 2022, Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi announced a task force to implement the recommendation that the two schools be merged into a single entity, with the preferred location to be at the Dickinson campus. U.S. News & World Report, in its 2021 rankings of Best Graduate Schools, ranked Penn State Law 60th among 194 law schools fully accredited by the American Bar Association.