UI College of Law moves into new center of operations in Boise
After more than four years of renovation, a major component of the new Idaho Law and Justice Learning Center (ILJLC) started its move to the old Ada County Courthouse June 15.
According to the College of Law’s webpage the building will house the University of Idaho College of Law in Boise, the Idaho State Law Library, the Idaho Supreme Court’s judicial offices and training facilities and public civil outreach and education space. The ILJLC will be located at 514 W. Jefferson St. in Boise, the site of the old Ada County Courthouse.
The Idaho State Law Library in Boise is managed by the University of Idaho College of Law. The College of Law manages the library to fulfill accreditation requirements and as part of a partnership with the Idaho Supreme Court, according to Lee Dillion, associate dean of the College of Law in Boise.
“We’ve taken over management of the law library back in 2011 as part of our effort to expand the program down here,” Dillion said. “It’s an accreditation requirement for law schools that we have a functional academic library, and so in addition to being a practitioner-oriented library that’s of service, not just to the practicing bar, but citizens generally. It’s actually a public library, then we brought the academic portion onto it.”
The library is currently located in the water center on Front Street. Moving the library into the building has been a goal for a while now, Dillion said.
“The state law library used to be on the capitol mall,” Dillion said. “For security and other reasons it was moved out of the supreme court building … but there’s always been a desire to get the state law library back onto the capitol mall. You know, it’s used by court clerks, it’s used by practitioners, used by the legislature and by all the attorney generals that work in the capitol mall area, so they wanted to get the library back. We agreed to help them do that and in addition we wanted to move our operations into the old Ada County Courthouse.”
Dillion said the old Ada County Courthouse building has been under renovation for more four years.
“While we’ve been over here in the water center the old Ada County Courthouse has been renovated,” Dillion said. “Everything’s been gutted, new walls and heating, cooling, air conditioning, electrical, plumbing, you name it has been going back into the old Ada County Courthouse and it’s now nearing completion for that … nearly four-year, five-year remodel project.”
The law library will be moving this week, and the rest of the College of Law offices will follow in July, Dillion said.
“The rest of our operations here in the water center, our faculty offices, our … study areas and so forth, we’ll move over in mid-July,” Dillion said. “So we’ll be up and fully functional on the capitol mall in about the last week of July.”
Corey Bowes can be reached at [email protected]