Wisconsin Lawyer
Vol. 80, No. 6, June 2007

Marquette University took a giant step closer to con-structing a new law school facility when an alumni couple donated $51 million to the law school in May.

Preliminary drawings for the new law school depict a four-story, 180,000-square-foot structure with 11 classrooms, 12 seminar/conference spaces of various sizes, 52 faculty offices, a chapel, and moot courtroom. Central to the design is a ground floor forum that will serve as a gathering place that connects the teaching, research, conference, and social spaces within the building. A three-story garage with 450 parking spaces will be constructed below the law school.

"We hope to break ground on the four-story structure next spring and move in by fall 2009," says Law School Dean Joseph D. Kearney, noting that in the past 25 years, Marquette's Law School faculty has doubled in size, the student body has increased 50 percent, and the law library collection is two and one-half times larger.

The recent donation is the second major gift targeted to Marquette's new law school. Last month the Bradley Foundation announced a $1 million donation, calling the law school a "fundamental component of Milwaukee's future." The initial cost estimate for the project is $80 million.

"The planned building location is expected to be at the corner of 11th Street and Clybourn Street, in an area known as Tory Hill," Kearney said. "Tory Hill rises alongside the most prominent crossroads in the State of Wisconsin - it forms one corner of the Marquette Interchange in downtown Milwaukee."

The donor, Ray Eckstein, is a 1949 law school graduate and his wife, Kay, received her bachelor's degree from Marquette in 1949. Kearney says the new building will be named in honor of the Ecksteins, as will the facility's law library, which will house more than 300,000 volumes and extensive online resources.

Wisconsin Lawyer