Courtrooms are classrooms

Professors and future bosses could be one and the same for law students.

UNM is the only law school in the nation with an active court system on its campus, the New Mexico Court of Appeals.

Rose Bryan, a 2010 graduate, said the court provides law students with a better opportunity to integrate themselves into the network of law professionals, as compared to other universities.

“To graduate and know multiple senior litigators in the community because they taught my classes, and to know that they care about whether or not I succeed, I know I wouldn’t be as happy a lawyer as I am here in this community,” she said.

Bryan said students have frequent opportunities to interact with and learn from the judges in the appellate court.

Barbara Bergman, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, said the courtroom has two seminar rooms at the back with one-way glass that allows students to watch court proceedings.

“You can sit in the rooms, hear the argument, and talk about it without disturbing the case,” she said. “Courtrooms aren’t [usually] designed like that. That was one of the primary motivations for designing the court room like that.”

Michael Bustamante, New Mexico Court of Appeals judge, has been at UNM since 1971.

He said at the start of his career, the state’s Court of Appeals was located in Santa Fe. In 1991 the court established a new location in Albuquerque, which hears most appeals cases, even though the official seat of the court is still in Santa Fe.

The court in Albuquerque was originally located in a tiny building, but in 2009 the court moved to a new, improved and soon-to-be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified building on UNM’s north campus.

The building is named after former law school professor Pamela B. Minzner.

Bustamante said construction on the new building cost about $12 million, which was appropriated to the court by the State Legislature.

He said the court provides law students with a wealth of employment opportunities after they graduate.

“More than half of this court are UNM alumni,” Bustamante said. “I hire all my clerks from the law school, as do most of the other alumni here.”