UA Law School to Get Technology Upgrade

There has been a lot of change, good and bad, at the University of Arkansas School of Law in the past six months.

In August, Dean Richard Atkinson died suddenly in Chicago while attending an American Bar Association Conference. To fill his shoes for the 2005-2006 school year, Howard Brill, a professor in legal ethics and professional responsibility, was chosen to become interim dean. Since then, he has faced some challenges, but Brill said he is overseeing a positive growth for the law school.

“All in all, this is an exciting time to be at the University of Arkansas law school,” Brill said.

One of those exciting things, Brill said, is a 50,000-SF, $12 million expansion of the Leflar Law Center, which will increase the total size to about 133,000 SF. The building will be ready by August.

The new addition will feature a state-of-the-art courtroom, which will have $100,000 worth of technology, including three 159-inch diagonal-wall projection screens, computer and video projectors, judges panel microphones, witness microphone, LCD monitors for judges and witnesses, wireless microphones, and an infrastructure that will eventually allow students to control the system from their laptop computers.

“The courtroom will be large enough to accommodate all of our students comfortably,” Brill said. “And it’s going to have all of the most significant technology.”

Along with the new courtroom, the new addition will have three classrooms equipped with $30,000 worth of technology in each room, including overhead projectors, LCD monitors and a computer video projector.

The Young Law Library will also have a new technology instruction lab with 35 computers, three more than it has now. The law school also hired Jason Springman, a recent graduate, as the instructional services librarian, Brill said. Springman’s job is to train faculty in software and hardware and to keep faculty current about technology in the classroom.

The law school has had wireless Internet since 2004 and will extend that service to the new addition. Brill said about two-thirds of the law students have laptop computers, but the school does not require the laptops.

Many professors let students write essays on their laptops using ExamSoft, a software program that disables all other programs, along with spelling and grammar check, so students can’t cheat, Springman said.

Even though the law school is expanding in structural size, it will not increase student enrollment, Brill said. The school has 450 law students currently enrolled and accepts 150 per year.