The Dickson Poon School of Law at King's College London has launched the largest ever scholarship programme for law in the UK and Europe, following a £20m gift from the school's benefactor, Hong Kong businessman Dickson Poon (pictured).

Eighty law scholarships will be available in 2013, with up to 75 covering all or part of the fees available to undergraduates enrolling in 2013 and up to five worth £90,000 each for post graduate PhD students. The scholarships will not be means tested.

Twenty five of the undergraduate scholarships are worth full home/EU fees for all years of study, with the remaining 50 worth £18,000 over three years. The five PhD scholarships are for £90,000 each over three years, which the university says represents the largest amount ever awarded to individual legal research students.

Conditions of the programme include reserving 15 of the 75 undergraduate scholarships for students from China and Hong Kong. Meanwhile 10 full fee undergraduate scholarships will be reserved for the university's LLB course, 10 for the "Politics, Philosophy and Law" course, while in 2013/14 five will be reserved for the dual English Law & French Law degree.

The scholarships use Harvey Nichols' chairman Poon's £20m donation, which was matched by the school to create a £40m pot for improving the school and boosting teaching and research. The scholarships will be awarded to students displaying "not only academic excellence, but…outstanding leadership potential and life ambition".

King's Vice Principal Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman confirmed the programme, which is worth more than £2m a year is set to run for around a decade, with the university also intending to raise further funds for future scholarships.

Speaking about the scholarship selection procedure, Freedman added: "It's [made on] merit basically. The college does quite a lot for widening participation. We'd hope that these scholarships would go to students who would otherwise be dissuaded from studying at university because of fee costs."

Poon said: "My donation and the establishment of these scholarships is part of the ambition I share with the law school at King's College London, to set new standards in legal education and research.

"The scholarships will help to enable exemplary students with academic agility and unlimited ambition to develop into future global leaders in all areas of law, business, education and civil society."

One senior executive at a law school commented:"Personally I think this is fantastic news particularly if the scholarships can aid social mobility. As for moving Kings up the ranks, [it] is already near the top of the tree globally so I don't suppose it will make much difference!"

King's College London was assisted on the establishment of the £40m investment programme by long term legal advisers Mills & Reeve, led by corporate partner Neil Burton.