Northwestern University has announced a $25 million gift from alumnus Neil Bluhm and the Bluhm Family Charitable Foundation.

The gift includes a $15 million commitment to Northwestern Law, the largest ever received by the law school. According to the terms of the gift, $6 million will be used to support need-based financial aid and key initiatives of the school's strategic plan, which is under development. Another $5 million will be used to help graduates who accept public service and government jobs repay law school loans, $3 million will be used to augment the Bluhm Legal Clinic's endowment and enhance its legal education programs, and $1 million over ten years will be used to build ongoing, sustainable support from law school alumni through annual gifts to the Law School Fund.

The remaining $10 million will provide funding for other schools and activities at the university, including Northwestern Medicine, the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the Bienen School of Music, and the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University.

Neil Bluhm, a 1962 graduate of Northwestern Law, is president of JMB Realty Corporation, which he co-founded in 1970 with his college roommate, Judd D. Malkin. A longtime trustee of the university, Bluhm received Northwestern's Alumni Medal, the highest honor an alumnus can receive from the university, in 2009. Bluhm also is a member of the board of Northwestern Memorial Foundation, board president of the Whitney Museum of American Art, a life trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an honorary director of the Alzheimer's Association's Greater Illinois Chapter.

"We are sincerely grateful to Neil and his family for this wonderful gift that will significantly benefit the law school at a transformative time in legal education," said Northwestern president Morton Schapiro. "It's a major commitment that will lend critical support to the law school's bold leadership, innovative programs and distinctive scholarship in American jurisprudence."