Despite a pending lawsuit, Penn State officials are continuing with plans for a law school at University Park by naming two possible locations for the new $60 million Dickinson School of Law.

Penn State Spokesman Tysen Kendig said Penn State is considering two locations for the law school: the intersection of Park Avenue and University Drive and the area north of the intersection of Park Avenue and Bigler Road.

Kendig said athletic fields would have to be rearranged if the school is built at Park Avenue and University Drive, where the women's softball fields are currently located.

"This would create a domino effect," he said. "The softball field would be moved to the baseball field, and baseball would be played in a new stadium."

Plans are already in progress for a new baseball stadium, Kendig said. Construction is set to begin in May and expected be finished by June 2006.

Kendig said neither potential construction areas would affect the intramural fields or traffic during football games or other sporting events.

"Any location for the new law school building would fit into the campus master plan," he said. "The plan has been in work for a number of years and involved a number of traffic studies to show what areas would accommodate a facility like this."

Kendig said the plans are not set in stone because the final Board of Governors meeting will be held at Dickinson's Carlisle campus tomorrow.

At the meeting, the board is expected to decide whether to approve the new dual-campus plan, which outlines the creation of a second campus at University Park and promises to keep the Carlisle campus open until at least 2015.

"If [the dual campus plan] is not passed, it would delay plans both here and in Carlisle," Kendig said. "We have no reason to believe that it wouldn't be passed."

Thomas Monteverde and G. Thomas Miller, two members of the Board of Governors who filed a lawsuit Feb. 3 to stop the dual-campus plan, said it is too early to make plans for the location of the school because a verdict in the case has not yet been reached. Monteverde said he wishes the campus in Carlisle would remain the primary one.

"The pending lawsuit involves whether or not the memorandum of understanding that was signed by the Board of Governors ... and Penn State is legal," he said. "Until that is resolved, we believe the construction of any building at that site would be improper."

Miller said he does not want to see the Carlisle campus ignored.

"I think the University Park campus can be useful, as long as it doesn't outclass the Carlisle campus," he said.

Miller also said he feels it is too early to propose building plans. "I think it is premature, but in the interest of long range planning it may make sense," he said. "I'd like to have a further and more tangible commitment to Carlisle."

Penn State President Graham Spanier met with law students in Carlisle yesterday to talk about the new law school and was unavailable for comment.