Harold and Carol Ann Nix Academic and Advoacy Center

The east wing contains all the classrooms, courtrooms, and advocacy facilities of the Law School, as well as a social lounge for students, the faculty office suite, and other amenities, including large student locker rooms and changing rooms on the first two levels.

Classrooms range from the small seminar rooms and classrooms to larger classrooms set in a tiered horseshoe conformation. The spaces are unsurpassed as teaching environments. The larger classroom desks are made of the signature African cherry wood found throughout the law center. All classrooms feature very comfortable, adjustable seating, and a natural slate chalk board. The classrooms are designed specifically to enhance interchange among the instructor and students and have outstanding acoustical qualities. All seats in the classrooms and courtrooms are hard-wired for data and power ports. The lighting in the classrooms and in every area of the law center is of the very highest quality, providing an inviting and highly functional illumination.

A very large two-story, octagonal appellate advocacy courtroom and classroom is very prominent in the view of the law center from University Parks Drive. The courtroom/classroom, which will seat up to 140 persons (and an additional 40 in non-desk seating), features upon entry, a majestic, soaring design and a very high level of finish. The first two ranks of desk can be easily removed to convert the room into an appellate advocacy courtroom, complete with a nine seat elevated judges' bench, counsel tables and a podium.

There are seven additional classrooms and two large seminar rooms in the east wing. On the first level, apart from the appellate advocacy courtroom/classroom, two other classrooms will each accommodate 95 students, and two seminar rooms will each accommodate 20 students.

Also on the first level in the east wing is the student social lounge, with magnificent views looking across a broad riverside terrace and down the river. Adjacent to the lounge is a food service area for light, pre-prepared breakfast and lunch fare for the Law School community. The social lounge opens out onto a paved patio seating area that overlooks the terrace and river and provides additional space for outside socializing. A very large and well-landscaped lawn leads down to the riverbank all

around the law center on the river side.

The corridors that serve the classrooms and courtrooms in the east wing are, as noted, unusually broad and are marked by carpeting punctuated by Vermont slate accent lines. The corridors feature informal seating areas to encourage discussion between faculty members and students between class sessions and also serve as informal study areas. On each corridor are found restrooms, a large locker room (there are 410 total lockers in three different areas in each of the east corridors and also in the library) and changing rooms.

The Practice Court classroom, with a 120 person seating capacity, is located on the second level of the east wing. The classroom is the centerpiece of an advocacy suite that features state-of-the-art technologically equipped courtrooms that provide an optimum environment for advocacy teaching, the centerpiece of our excellence. Like other areas within the law center, the courtrooms are decorated in complementary yet distinctive designs and color pallets. In the advocacy suite, there are also three interscholastic advocacy team rooms. The second level also contains additional classrooms accommodating, respectively, 60, 40, and 40 students.

The faculty suite, with nearly all offices having views across, or down, the river, are on the third level of the east wing. The faculty suite also features two conference rooms that allow faculty members and students to work together on projects or confer in small groups, as well as a reception area, a faculty library, a faculty lounge, a staff lounge and various administrative spaces. Each faculty member selected a furniture office design and conformation to meet individual taste and needs. In the faculty suite, as throughout the law center, all furniture is new, with the exception of a handful of refinished historical pieces from Morrison Constitution Hall.