CU to Break Ground on New Law School

Progress on new building prompts ABA to halt accreditation review

Groundbreaking on the new School of Law at the University of Colorado will take place on Nov. 12, with construction set to begin in January.

The building is scheduled for completion by the fall 2006 semester.

Progress on the new building has prompted the American Bar Association to drop its plans for an accreditation review. In 2003 the ABA deemed the existing law school building to be out of compliance with accreditation standards.

Now that the construction is proceeding on a new facility, the ABA said its concerns are being addressed.

"The University of Colorado and the School of Law have made significant progress in addressing the school's deficiencies," the ABA's accreditation committee told law school Dean David Getches and CU President Elizabeth Hoffman in a letter dated Oct. 13.

Getches said he was pleased with the decision.

"A green light for our new building not only puts the accreditation issue behind us, but also makes the school's future look even brighter," he said.

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The decision follows months of meetings and communications with the ABA committee after a site inspection of the law school in 2002. The inspection led to the issuance of a letter to the dean in summer 2002 finding the school out of compliance with the standards for accreditation based on the building's inadequacy.

Much of the ABA's concern centers on inadequate space for the law library.

The new law building was approved by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education in 2000 and the legislature that year appropriated $2 million for the project. But later in 2000 the CCHE revised the amount of private fund raising required for the building from $8 million to $12.8 million.

In 2001 the legislature appropriated another $8.8 million for the building but later rescinded the appropriation, taking back all unspent funds and canceling all state capital construction projects.

More than $8 million in privately raised money will support the construction and $5.6 million has been added from CU-Boulder's reserve funds.

Students will be the largest contributors, paying $26.9 million of the total building costs through a law school tuition differential of $1,000 a year, which began in 1999, and a $400 a year fee assessment of all 29,000 CU-Boulder students.

Last April's decision by the CU student government made the construction possible, replacing anticipated state funding of more than $21 million.

The assessment will begin upon completion of the building, slated for fall 2006, and will be phased in with a $100-a-year student fee hike. The fee will increase by $100 a year to $400 a year after four years. The CU-Boulder student government approved the fee hike in spring 2004.

The proceeds will be adequate to finance not only the new law building but also three other construction projects on the Boulder campus.

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