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Renderings show the University of Houston Law Center building that opened this semester.

Renderings show the University of Houston Law Center building that opened this semester.

The University of Houston Law Center marked the opening of its new $93 million campus Friday, holding its first major event in a building expected to change the educational landscape for Houston’s legal community.

“This is a school where we dare to dream, and dare to dream big,” Dean Leonard M. Baynes said. “This building is a manifestation of our dreams. For so many years we’ve been saddled with a building that didn’t really reflect who we were. Now we have an ultra-modern building, a building that is reflective of Houston’s grandeur.”

The law center dedicated the John M. O’Quinn Law Building with a conference about the legal profession’s role in promoting democracy and community. Bar leaders, judges and attorneys filled a lecture hall for various discussions on the future of the field and students' part in it.

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Several attorneys at the conference Friday offered words of advice to young lawyers as they discussed the challenges facing attorneys today. Dominique D. Calhoun, president-elect of the National Bar Association, said he is counting on lawyers – young and old – to protect democracy and the right to vote.

“We have a short memory, we remember 1964 and before,” he said. “We remember what it was like for you to have a poll tax … Remember the history, and join us in the effort.”

The conversation often shifted back to the excitement around the new learning space.

More than 400 alumni contributed to the building, which has been decades in the making, Baynes said. The new law school facility replaces four previous buildings, which made extensive use of basements and was situated above an underground spring. Flood damage during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 led the law school’s leadership to ask alumni and the state legislature to financially contribute and construct a new campus.

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“Those contributions change lives,” said Renee Knake Jefferson, Joanne and Larry Doherty Chair in Legal Ethics at the law center. “They bring people to this institution.”

The law school’s incoming class includes more than 1,000 students, with its highest ever median entrance GPA of 3.7.

Women make up the majority, at 57 percent, according to law school data. About 53 percent of the newest class are white; 17 percent are Hispanic; 18 percent are Asian; and 12 percent are Black. About 14 percent identify as LGBTQ.

Students were welcomed this year to a new 180,000-square-foot campus with sweeping views of Houston. The building relies more heavily on natural light, compared to the older, leaky buildings that housed the previous classes.

A lobby welcomes both students and people receiving free legal services. Faculty are now consolidated on two floors of the new campus. And the law center has new amenities, including a lactation room, a medical privacy room, showers, lockers, student lounges, a meditation room and an outdoor terrace.

 University of Houston senior Henry Teccsi, who is planning to apply for law school, said he feels encouraged at the UH Law Center’s investment in its students.

“It shows we’re coming out more as a national powerhouse and really sets the tone on what’s to come,” Teccsi said. 

Samantha Ketterer is a Houston Chronicle reporter covering higher education.

She joined the staff as a breaking news reporter in 2018. She later covered criminal justice and the Harris County courthouse.

Samantha, who is from Houston's suburbs, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and is a proud alumna of The Daily Texan. She is a former reporting fellow for the Dallas Morning News' state bureau and a former city hall reporter for The Galveston County Daily News.

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