King Hall Renovation and Expansion
Project Planning Guide
Project Account # 950340
Prepared By: Resource Management
and Planning
September 2005 (revised)
Approved By:
John A. Meyer Date
Vice Chancellor – Resource Management
and Planning
University of California One Shields Ave
Resource Management and Planning Davis, CA 95616
Table of Contents
Capital Improvement Budget
Executive Summary 1
Overview of UC Davis 2
Program Description 3
Need for the Project 6
Alternatives Considered 12
Relationship to University Mission and Objectives 12
Project Description 13
Cost Basis and Sustainability 17
Site Map
Project Schedule
Environmental Impact Classification
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The School of Law at UC Davis moved into its current building, Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall, in 1968 with 337 total students and 15 faculty members. The School has grown to 575 students and 39 FTE budgeted faculty members, with 5 legal journals, 4 clinical programs, very active moot court, trial and appellate advocacy programs, and 22 academic groups.
To accommodate growth and the emergence of new programs as legal education evolved over the past 40 years, the School has incrementally partitioned and converted the space of the existing building to new functions. For example, a library reading room was converted to a computer lab, new faculty offices were reconfigured from library stacks and group study rooms, and students working on legal journals were moved into conference rooms.
The result of these incremental accommodations is a facility configuration that is inefficient, disjointed, over-crowded, and ultimately insufficient to support the teaching, research, and service programs of the School. In its 2004 accreditation review, the American Bar Association concluded that the School’s facilities are “small and reflect an earlier era in legal education that makes it difficult to function as a modern facility.”
To correct these deficiencies, the Davis campus proposes a capital improvement project that integrates a modest 22 percent addition to King Hall with renovation of key portions of the existing building. The project will add 18,800 assignable square feet (ASF), renovate 14,300 ASF of existing space, and upgrade building systems in the existing facility. The project will relieve over-crowding and allow consolidation of program functions in the existing building to address the most urgent needs for office space and library space. The project will also include a new 125-seat trial practice room and additional meeting space, which will be funded with added gift funds.
The proposed project adopts a capital improvement strategy that maximizes value to the School’s programs by combining a modest building addition with renovation of selective areas in the existing building. The completed project will provide an integrated facility that coordinates office, library, and instructional functions into cohesive program units.
OVERVIEW OF UC DAVIS
UC Davis, chartered in 1868 as a land grant college, is now acknowledged as an international leader in agricultural, biological, and environmental sciences. The campus has gained similar recognition for excellence in the arts, humanities, social sciences, engineering, health sciences, law, and management. UC Davis ranks among the top ten public universities nationally. The campus attributes much of its strength to its historic focus in agriculture and the impressive diversity of academic programs that emerged from this foundation. A distinguished faculty of scholars and scientists, a treasured sense of community, and a dedication to the land-grant values of creative, responsive, and innovative teaching, research and public service are hallmarks of UC Davis. Interdisciplinary collaboration encourages students and faculty to explore the relationships between fields of study.
Recent rapid enrollment growth has spurred academic program development, research activity, and growth in faculty numbers. Growth since 1998-99 has been very rapid, approximately 6.0% per year. The campus has focused its capital program on instructional and research space and is still attempting to catch up to the growth already experienced to fulfill facility needs. The general campus (excluding the School of Medicine and the School of Veterinary Medicine) long term enrollment plan in Table 1 shows projected total student enrollment increasing from 20,351 in 1998-99 to 28,200 in 2009-10, two years after completion of the proposed project.
Table 1
UCD General Campus Enrollment,
Actual and Projected
Actual / Budgeted / Projected1998-99 / 2004-05 / 2009-10
Undergraduate FTE / 17,179 / 22,835 / 23,775
Graduate FTE / 3,172 / 3,965 / 4,425
Total / 20,351 / 26,800 / 28,200
Based on these enrollment projections and analysis of space available and proposed, California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) space guidelines show that without the proposed project, by 2009-10, the campus would have 172,000 ASF less than the amount of standard space allowance needed for instruction and research activities.
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
The School of Law was established on the Davis campus in 1965. It is distinguished by a small student body, small class sizes, and an outstanding faculty committed to a supportive educational environment. Current enrollment is 575 student FTEs; students are taught by 63 faculty members.
The curriculum is diverse and broad, spanning legal theory, legal analysis, and the basic practice areas of law, as well as the social, economic, and political background that informs the evolution of the law. The School is nationally renowned for its programs in human rights, public interest law, community clinics, environmental law, international law, and intellectual property rights. UC Davis is ranked 32nd out of all 182 ABA-accredited law schools.
The School is named for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to honor his efforts to achieve social and political justice for the disadvantaged by lawful and orderly means.
The Instructional Program
The Juris Doctor (JD) degree program forms the core of the instructional activities in the School. The program requires three years of study in residence. The first-year curriculum is prescribed and provides the essential framework for subsequent legal study. All students take courses in civil procedure, constitutional law, contracts, criminal law, legal research, legal writing, property, and torts. The work during years two and three is elective, where students choose among 150 course offerings.
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The School provides students with an education that has a unique balance of theory and practice. Virtually every student participates in one or more of the School's trial and appellate advocacy programs. These programs include various moot court competitions, trial practice classes, trial practice competition, and appeals court classes. The School enlists the active participation of judges and lawyers, many of them alumni, as instructors for the practical training of students in trial advocacy. Without this type of applied skills training, graduates would advance to legal careers with virtually no experience in areas critical to the practice of law.
The instructional program is integrated with graduate education throughout the Davis campus. Typically requiring four years, students may earn a joint JD and master’s degree in business administration, economics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, or international agricultural development.
Student-run law journals form a major component of the instructional program. Selected students have the opportunity to work on five law journals: Law Review, Environs (Environmental Law), Business Law Journal, Journal of Juvenile Law and Policy, and the Journal of International Law and Policy. As major outlets for scholarly publications, the journals are a point of integration between the instructional and research programs of the School. Faculty advisors are heavily involved, and students often earn academic credit for their journal work.
The Research Program
Through integration of the research and teaching programs, students at the School of Law are exposed to some of the leading national and international legal scholars in a variety of fields. The School produces advanced legal scholarship in a variety of fields, pioneering the law in such areas as scientific evidence, international human rights, immigration law, civil rights, non-marital cohabitation, and criminal sentencing. It is helping shape environmental law in Washington D.C., constitutions in Eastern Europe, commercial law in China, and family law in England, the Netherlands and Germany.
Faculty are expanding collaboration with other scholars on the UC Davis campus and other campuses, with inter-disciplinary projects in cultural studies, political science, psychology, biosciences, and the environmental and agricultural sciences. Faculty members are providing critical legal and ethical expertise and guidance to the campus stem-cell initiative, which is bringing faculty together from across the campus.
The School is at the forefront of legal reform through faculty leadership and participation in the projects of the prestigious American Law Institute (ALI). The institute's projects -- which clarify and update issues of the law -- form the basis of laws enacted across the country and become standards cited in judges' legal opinions, lawyers' briefs and scholarly articles. With 10 of its faculty members elected to the institute, the School is among those with the highest proportion of faculty in the ALI.
The Clinical and Public Service Program
Clinical programs are central to the curriculum and mission of the School of Law. The programs conform to ABA requirements that law schools offer students significant opportunities for pro bono and public service work, as these will be expected of them as legal practitioners. The faculty commitment to public service and to pro bono legal service is extended to students through a unique array of clinical offerings. In-house clinics include specialized work in civil rights, family law and domestic violence, prisoners’ rights, and immigration law. Fully-supervised externship programs allow students to earn academic credit for work in environmental law, human rights, criminal defense and prosecution, labor law, public interest law, tax law, and juvenile law.
Civil Rights Clinic. Students advocate for the civil rights of prisoners and other indigents, usually in federal district court. Clinic students are able to gain experience that takes them well beyond their three years of law school. In a typical semester, students may conduct client intakes, meet with clients, draft interrogatories, conference with federal judges and opposing counsel, take depositions, draft and file pleadings, interview witnesses, and research legal issues. Students also attend weekly clinical meetings where they report on their work, advance new ideas and help each other develop strategies about how to proceed in litigation. In addition, students may try a case before a jury or negotiate a settlement.
Family Protection and Legal Assistance Clinic. The Family Protection and Legal Assistance Clinic is the newest addition to the School’s clinical program. Students enroll in the clinic for two semesters and represent domestic violence victims who would not otherwise be able to afford an attorney. Emphasizing the importance and added effectiveness of addressing a complex problem from different perspectives, the program contains three components: student education, direct client representation, and community education.
Immigration Law Clinic. The Immigration Law Clinic, established in 1981, provides year-round community education and free legal services to low income immigrants. Due to its location in the Central Valley, California's agricultural center, the Clinic is in a unique position to serve the state's large immigrant community. Students interview clients and witnesses, conduct factual investigations, draft pleadings and motions, prepare legal briefs, prepare witnesses for direct and cross examination, and represent immigrants at hearings in immigration court. A major emphasis of the clinic is development of student’s trial skills and the ability to prepare clients for direct examination. The Clinic allows students to serve as attorneys in administrative law cases involving political asylum and deportation. In a semester's time, students take cases from beginning to end, appearing before an administrative law judge in a hearing with an opposing lawyer.
Prison Law Clinic. The students in the Prison Law Clinic use their legal skills to assist prisoners with problems related to incarceration in state prison. Students advocate on their clients' behalf with officials at the institution where the prisoner is housed, and file formal grievances with the California Department of Corrections. The Clinic provides students the opportunity to practice criminal law, to learn about the California state prison system, and to experience the art of negotiating and the intricacies of administrative law.
The Library
The law library is a critical resource that supports the instructional, research, and service programs of the School. The library contains over 425,000 volumes, including over 125,000 volume-equivalents in microform materials. A staff of 18, including three attorneys and five with professional library degrees, keep the library open 78 hours per week when the School is in session and provide reference service for both traditional and computer information sources.
The study of law relies on library resources in a unique way. The library is a learning laboratory, where students are taught methods of legal research by librarians. Much of the law is based on actual cases, which typically cite other cases in developing support for a decision. Students must learn how to navigate a complex system of multiple information sources for constructing their own legal arguments.
Like other law libraries, the School is using current information technologies to enhance service to students and faculty and to maximize space and fiscal resources. The library is a long-time subscriber to on-line legal databases, such as Lexis and Westlaw. Four years ago, the library added Heinonline, a database that provides digital images of law journals as originally published, addressing the need for precise legal citations. The library participates in the UC system’s California Digital Library, providing a wide range of non-legal resources often needed by students and faculty.
Users access on-line resources through a local area wireless network within King Hall, a computer laboratory within the library facility, and public workstations located in the library stacks. The computer lab is open to students around the clock seven days a week.
The library staff conducts training sessions in the use of on-line databases. Training is coordinated with regular courses in legal research, taught conjunctively by faculty and legal librarians.
At the same time, many information resources in hard copy format are essential to the students in preparation of coursework and critical to student and faculty research of legal issues and clinical experience. However, effective management of hard copy and digital resources, with careful weeding and off site storage of less frequently used materials, will allow the physical size of the library collection to stabilize in the near future.