Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law has received a $10 million grant to help build its new law center, the Arizona Center for Law and Society, at the Downtown Phoenix campus.
The donation, which is the largest single gift the law school has ever received, comes from local attorney Leo Beus and his wife Annette.
“Neither one of us are ASU graduates, but we’ve lived here for a long time and … it made sense,” Leo Beus said.
Beus said he began to see the difference that ASU was making in people’s lives after he was involved with students at the Tempe Institute of Religion as a Mormon bishop.
“What I think [the law school is] doing is really marvelous,” Beus said. “The law school dean is a terrific dean. The ASU president is a terrific president. ASU is a friendly place for people of any faith. But what really got us there was just how much good we could see ASU was doing right now and what the potential was for change in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. So my wife and I looked at all of those things and we said, ‘It’s a good thing to do,’ so we did it.”
The Beuses have a history of philanthropy with ASU. They have quietly made several donations to the law school and the university in the past and currently have a scholarship program with the law school. Beus and his partner Paul Gilbert, both founders of the law firm Beus Gilbert PLLC, have helped raise more than $20 million for the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law’s “Building the Future” campaign since July 2013.
Rick Shangraw, Jr., the CEO of the ASU Foundation for A New American University, said the project will be funded from a variety of sources.
“It’s funded from philanthropy, which Leo’s gift is a big part of,” Shangraw said. “It’s also getting support from the city of Phoenix and a set of bonds that will be issued by ASU.”
According to the Arizona Center for Law and Society’s website, the project will cost $129 million in total.
All of the Beuses’ grant will go towards the construction of the building.
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The Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law will move from the Tempe campus to the downtown Phoenix campus once the building is completed in 2016. Classes will begin to be held at the new law center during the fall semester of that year.
Among the features of the law school will be 18 classrooms, a high-tech courtroom and the relocated Ross-Blakley Law Library.
Law student Casey Clowes is looking forward to the move and the impact it will make for students.
“I believe that close proximity will help strengthen partnerships between the law school and outside organizations,” Clowes said. “I think that the Arizona Center for Law and Society will provide students easy access to (internship and externship) opportunities with the city’s public and private organizations that we just don’t have here in Tempe.”
One of those close proximity opportunities for students would be the ASU Alumni Law Group, an upcoming not-for-profit law firm that will be located in the Arizona Center for Law and Society. The ASU Alumni Law Group will be a teaching law firm that will teach law students and provide law graduates with job opportunities.
Shangraw said that the Beuses’ most recent gift to the law school was very generous and a great action of leadership by them.
“We are very thankful that Leo and Annette stepped up,” Shangraw said. “Because of that, we’re going to have a great facility down there and it’s going to really help the downtown campus.”
Contact the reporter at dcleland@asu.edu
