Thomas M Cooley Law School

Founding The Thomas M. Cooley Law School was established by a group of lawyers and judges led by Thomas E. Brennan , a former Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court (from 1969 – 1970). The school was named in honor of Thomas McIntyre Cooley (1824–1898), a prominent 19th-century jurist, who was also a former Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice, and former dean of the University of Michigan Law School . [ 13 ] Cooley was incorporated in October 1971, with operation dependent on approval of the State Board of Education. [ 14 ] Despite opposition from a committee of lawyers and law professors, the Board of Education approved establishment of the school in summer 1972 and the school began operations on January 10, 1973. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] [ 17 ] [ 18 ] The problems of funding and facilities raised at the Board of Education were not yet resolved but Brennan expressed confidence these issues would be worked out. [ 19 ]

Lansing campus Cooley opened in 1973 in a small building on Grand Avenue near downtown Lansing. [ 19 ] Cooley opened as night school for the first six months with 76 students and had 221 students by the end of 1973. The faculty included active judges and part-time professors. [ 20 ] In 1974, Cooley purchased and then extensively renovated the former Lansing Masonic Temple Building to house the school. The purchase price was $400,000 (about $ 1.97 million in 2024 [ 21 ] ), and renovation costs were over $10 million (over $ 49.3 million in 2024 [ 21 ] ). The Temple building housed most of the operations of the law school until the Cooley Center Building was completed, and continued to be used by the school for instruction until 2008, and for operations until 2014. [ 22 ] Cooley renovated the former JCPenney building in downtown Lansing as the Thomas E. Brennan Law Library, opening in 1993. The purchase price was $700,000 and the cost of renovation was $11 million (respectively about $ 1.37 million and $ 21.5 million in 2024 [ 21 ] ). [ 23 ] [ 24 ] Cooley purchased and then extensively renovated the former Lansing Commerce Center Building over the period from 2004 to 2007, with a later buildout in 2013 to become the principal teaching and administrative center of the law school, the Cooley Center. The original 14-story office building was redesigned as a 10-story building with higher ceilings to accommodate classrooms. The purchase price was $1.5 million, and renovations cost $35 million (about $ 2.44 million and $ 50.9 million , respectively, in 2024 [ 21 ] ). [ 25 ] In 2010, Cooley expanded the Brennan Library, opening the first phase of a $6 million ($ 8.4 million in 2024 [ 21 ] ) expansion, adding The Center for Research and Study in the former Town Center Building, eventually doubling the size of the library to 138,927 square feet, to become second largest law school library by size.

[ 26 ] Though not a part of the law school campus, Cooley was also the name sponsor of "Cooley Law School Stadium", currently Jackson Field , the home stadium of the baseball minor league Lansing Lugnuts in downtown Lansing from 2010 to 2020. Over the 2021-2022 timeframe, Cooley moved the Brennan Library to the Cooley Center, and closed the Center for Research and Study, consolidating all of its Lansing campus operations to the Cooley Center building. [ 27 ]

In May 2012, Cooley opened a new branch campus in Riverview, Florida . The initial enrollment was 104, with facilities designed to accommodate 700 students. The initial campus 132,000-square-foot building included a 25,000-square-foot law library, 336-seat auditorium and 24 classrooms. Full curriculum was planned to be rolled out over a 3-year period, with 65 full time faculty and staff and 35 part-time faculty. [ 28 ]