We are beginning planning for a major facility expansion that will provide additional classrooms, faculty offices and student space.

"The expansion will provide additional facilities to continue growing the faculty and modestly increase the size of the student body," Dean Roger Dennis said. "There will be additional space for the Trial Advocacy and Clinical programs."

Dean Dennis said the project is very much a work in progress but that the design to be chosen will facilitate a more cohesive community at the school.

Plans call for the existing four-story, 57,158-square-foot building to gain an additional 73,000 square feet of space through the project, which is slated for completion in 2012.

Designs are under development by Ayres Saint Gross, one of the nation's top campus planners and the architects behind the stunning new law school at Rutgers University in Camden and major renovations of law schools at Syracuse University and the University of Virginia.

Preliminary designs for the $42 million project call for extending the rear of the existing building out to Ludlow Street and adding three additional floors to create a seven-story building.