March 17, 2011

Cooley Law School’s Auburn Hills Campus Doubles Its Library Capacity; Total Volumes in Four-Campus System Now Second Largest in the State

The Thomas M. Cooley Law School unveiled its expanded Auburn Hills campus library at a grand opening ceremony today. The expansion essentially doubles the seating, group study rooms, shelf space, and square footage of the facility. The resulting increase in total volumes brings Cooley’s four-campus library system at its Ann Arbor, Auburn Hills, Grand Rapids, and Lansing campuses to more than 670,000 volumes, making it now the second largest law library in the state. These materials are available at any of Cooley’s four campuses by overnight delivery.

“Our goal with this expansion was to give students, lawyers, and members of the public a chance to not only have access to these resources, but to give them the opportunity to do so in a comfortable environment that provides an ideal setting to study and research the law,” said John Nussbaumer, associate dean at the Auburn Hills campus.

The expansion increases library seating at the Auburn Hills campus from 147 to 390, group study rooms from 9 to 19, shelf space from 8,100 to 15,912 linear feet, and square footage from 12,660 to 22,199 square feet.

At the ceremony, Myron Lloyd, President of the D. Augustus Straker Bar Association, announced that the Auburn Hills campus library would now be home to the association’s historical documents and archives. The mission of the Straker Bar Association is to increase minority representation in the legal profession, support and encourage legal practice opportunities for minorities, and facilitate equal justice for underserved members of Oakland County, Mich.

President Lloyd also unveiled a framed portrait of D. Augustus Straker that will hang in the library. Straker was the first African-American attorney to argue before the Michigan Supreme Court. In Ferguson v Gies, 82 Mich 358 (1890), he successfully argued that the “separate but equal” doctrine then followed by the United States Supreme Court was unconstitutional under Michigan law.

Cooley Law School is the largest law school in the nation.  Founded in 1972, the private, non-profit law school operates J.D. programs across Michigan in Lansing, Auburn Hills, Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor.  Today, Cooley Law School has more than 15,000 graduates across the nation and worldwide and also offers joint degree and master of laws programs.  Cooley offers enrollment three times a year; in January, May and September. Additional information about Cooley can be found at cooley.edu.