The University of Pennsylvania Law School has received the single largest donation to a law campus on record and is changing its name in honor of the donor.

The school will now be called the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School after receiving $125 million from the W.P. Carey Foundation. That tops the $115 million gift James E. Rogers made to the University of Arizona's law school in 1998 and the $100 million donation from the Pritzker family to Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law in 2015.

The funds will support a variety of programs, including student scholarships, diverse student recruiting, pro bono work, the school's newly launched Future of the Profession Initiative, interdisciplinary offerings and additional resources for alumni.

"To amplify and extend our existing success, we must attract and support the best students, foster a diverse and inclusive learning environment in the broadest sense, recruit the finest scholars and teachers, and support our graduates as they enter and navigate a rapidly changing profession," said Penn law dean Ted Ruger in an announcement of the donation. "This gift will make possible the achievement of those goals and more."

With the approval of the donation and name change by the university's board of trustees on Friday, Penn also will become the highest ranking law school to be renamed for a donor. (The school is currently No. 7 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings.) Northwestern is the only other school within the so-called T-14 to bear a donor's name.

Naming rights have become an increasingly important avenue for fundraising in legal education. Last month, Pepperdine University's law school was renamed the Pepperdine University Rick J. Caruso School of Law after it received $50 million from its namesake, who is a Los Angeles-area real estate developer.

The W.P. Carey Foundation was created in 1990 by William Polk Carey, who founded the real estate financing firm bearing his name and who died in 2012. The foundation has been a major philanthropic player in higher education. It gave $50 million to Johns Hopkins University's business school in 2006 and another $50 million to the business school at Arizona State University in 2002. Both schools were renamed for Carey.

In 2011, the foundation donated $30 million to the University of Maryland's law school, which was renamed the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law in honor of W.P. Carey's grandfather, who had graduated from the Baltimore school in 1880.

The Carey family also has ties to Penn. The foundation's first president, Francis J. Carey—William Polk Carey's brother—graduated from the Philadelphia law school in 1949. He died in 2014. W.P. Carey, as William Polk Carey was known, completed his undergraduate degree at the university. And the foundation's current chairman, William P. Carey II, graduated from Penn's Wharton School of Business this year.

"This gift will bolster cross-disciplinary opportunities for law students at Penn's 11 other top-ranked graduate and professional schools, preparing the next generation of leaders in the law, business, government, and in the public interest," said William P. Carey II in a prepared statement. "This is a proud moment for both the foundation and our family as we pay homage to the legacy of both Bill and Frank Carey."

Fostering more diversity among students and supporting inclusion on campus is among the many goals behind the Carey donation, according to the law school. Penn Law has come under criticism from students and outsiders over its handling of professor Amy Wax, whose controversial statements on race and immigration over the past two years have led to calls for her firing. (Wax, who is tenured, remains on the faculty but has been removed from teaching required first-year courses. She is on a sabbatical this academic year.)

The school's Future of the Profession Initiative, unveiled in October, aims to position students and alumni for the legal profession of the future, while also helping improve access to justice. The school also plans to use the new funding to bolster its offerings for alumni, including continuing education programming and mid-career counseling resources tailored to their individual career stage.

"The Carey Foundation's historic gift will further elevate an outstanding multidisciplinary program of legal education at the University of Pennsylvania," said Penn President Amy Gutmann. "Through this partnership their philanthropy will benefit generations of law students, the profession, and the rule of law. We are grateful for and inspired by their leadership and their commitment to the University."