[box]Jennifer Gerarda Brown, dean of the Quinnipiac University School of Law, stands in front of the new Quinnipiac University School of Law Center on the North Haven Campus.[/box]
Quinnipiac University has completed its new state-of-the-art School of Law Center on the North Haven Campus, and will welcome students on the first day of classes on Monday, Aug. 18.
The new facility includes a library, quiet reading room, courtrooms, classrooms, dispute resolution center, law clinic, student lounge and space for career development and student organizations.
“We are thrilled to be moving into the new building,” said School of Law Dean Jennifer Gerarda Brown. “The whole building is so thoughtfully designed to facilitate collaboration and learning. It’s beautiful now, and will look even better when it’s filled with the sights and sounds of a new school year underway.”
The 220-foot-long by 32-foot-wide Grand Nave serves as the center of the facility, with circulation and reference staff on hand and plenty of comfortable seating for students to settle in with their studies or simply relax between classes.
Off the Grand Nave, visitors to the library will find the library’s stacks flanked by a long row of study carrels, an alumni reading room, the Library Commons, where trainings and workshops can be held, and multiple seminar and group study rooms.
A unique room, named The Counselor’s Cove, borders the eastern end of the Grand Nave and will provide a quiet, comfortable space for reflection and community building.
“At Quinnipiac, we want to produce lawyers who are not only zealous advocates, but also wise counselors. Ann DeVeaux, director of our Law Library, and I agreed that even as we provide space for learning and study, we should also provide library visitors with a more contemplative space, in which they can de-stress and consider the integration of professional and personal values. For us, that’s the Counselor’s Cove,” explained Brown.
“Our library here is absolutely stunning, but it will also be dynamic — with lots of activity and traffic in the Grand Nave and quieter study spaces tucked away along the edges,” Brown said.
While the second floor facilitates study and houses many of the faculty offices, the third floor is where the majority of classes are taught.
“The classrooms offer terrific technological support for the engaged, imaginative teaching that our faculty are doing,” Brown said.
A trial practice room, complete with an eight-person jury box, a judge’s bench and video-capture capability, is located on the third floor. The School of Law’s 150-seat ceremonial courtroom is located on the first floor.
Also on the third floor is a student lounge, a dispute resolution suite composed of four specially designed classrooms, as well as collaborative classrooms and lecture halls. Offices for student organizations, such as law review, the student bar association, and the international human rights law society, are adjacent to the classrooms and student lounge.
“In the midst of this student activity,” says Brown, “we have located our offices of student services and career development, so that students see these elements of our operation as absolutely woven into their daily lives.”
Throughout the facility are study alcoves and carrels for students to prepare for exams, work with their peers and complete papers.
A new law clinic, located on the first floor, includes a private entrance for clients, 40 workstations. It also includes two classrooms with a combined seating for 40 students. The clinic also provides interview rooms and a conference room where students and faculty can confer with their clients.
The university will officially celebrate the opening of the law school at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 1. The Hon. Guido Calabresi, senior judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Sterling Professor Emeritus and former dean of the Yale Law School, will be the special guest at this invitation-only event. The public will have the opportunity to tour the new law center from 3 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 11 during Quinnipiac’s Homecoming Weekend.