For the University of Houston, combining its law school’s instructional, administrative, resource and study spaces with a center that meets the legal needs of the surrounding area in one building will give students the opportunity to learn and practice in a single place. At the same time, the school is strengthening its relationship with its community.
The University’s new John M. O’Quinn Law Building, designed by architectural firm Shepley Bulfinch, has an innovative design that accommodates both the law school and a legal clinic for low-income residents. The building was designed to function as a center for legal education and also serve Houston residents who need pro bono legal assistance. Siting the clinic in the law school provides students with an added bonus: they can get in practice hours to hone their legal skills in the same building where they take classes.
The school’s existing law school building opened in 1969 and was dark and prone to flooding in the basement law library, which became moldy. When the area was hit by Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, the library was unusable. The legal clinics were also located in the dark basement, which didn’t get any natural light.
In the initial planning stages for the new building, Leonard Baynes, Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center, organized a committee with a wide variety of faculty and other stakeholders who voiced their opinions on many of the building’s components. The collaboration between professors, students, alumni, various staff groups and departments helped determine the building design. “Our goal with the new structure was to match the quality of the building and design with the quality of education,” explained Baynes.
For Natalie Thurman, one of the lead architects on the project, the topics of equity, diversity and inclusion are central to not only the law school, but the university. “Every single conversation that we had with the law center about the design responded to that topic,” said.
“Equity was at the front of their minds in every building committee meeting,” Thurman said. The design had to reflect the school’s focus. “In the previous building, the legal clinics were in the basement, accessible through a separate entrance. So if you needed free legal services, you’d have to go through a different entrance, down stairs and through a doorway, making these people feel like second-class citizens,” Thurman explained. “Now the entrance to the legal clinic is through the main entrance of the building.”
Baynes was instrumental in raising the more than $20 million in funding from school alumni and members of the community, from a wide variety of donors in terms of race, ethnicity and gender. “The fundraising was very diverse and included outreach to members of the community and events hosted Black alums, Asian alums Hispanic alums and women alums, as well as alums outside the area.
“Only about 50 percent of funds came from people living in Houston,” Baynes pointed out. About 10 percent of the initial amounts raised were from minority group alumni and 33 percent from women. “The building reflects the diversity of the donors,” he said. “It sends an important message to our students.”
The architects designed the building to function optimally. The first floor is open to the public and features a lobby and reception desk along with the legal clinics, which were in the dark basement of the previous building. The floor also includes flexible courtroom space that can be used for events or split into two classrooms and showers and changing rooms.
Faculty members work with students to prepare them to work with clients. Many clients are low-income or indigent. “We want them to feel welcome and not to get lost in the building,” Baynes pointed out.
The second floor contains classrooms and the student services office, along with a student lounge and meditation room and mother’s lactation room. Faculty offices are on the third floor, along with the IT help desk. The fourth floor houses the library and study spaces and the fifth floor has some quiet study spaces, an event space and a recording studio. The Dean’s office, alumni relations and the marketing department are also on the fifth floor.
Doing pro bono legal work for the community is built into the law school’s program. Students can sign up for the clinics in their second or third years. The school offers clinics in entrepreneurship, evictions, civil justice, mediation, immigration, death penalty, juvenile expungements and more. “The clinics are all in one space, allowing the students, clinical faculty and staff to have some synergies among themselves,” Baynes said.
Students will decide on a clinic, register, take the class and a faculty member or attorney who teaches a class will have some in-class sessions to help familiarize students with the law in the particular areas and help them represent clients. Students will go out in the community and do lectures on legal rights in the clinic specialization area so people know the law and to get clients. An attorney or faculty member will also guide students to work one-on-one with clients.
“The clinics are very important,” Baynes said. It’s great experience for our students and makes them practice-ready.” The program provides more than $3 million in free legal services in the community each year. “Not only are students getting a sense of what practice is like and get experience in the intricacies of a particular area of law, but also doing work for people who have needs. That’s really exciting for us.”