Ann Arbor

The relationship between the University of Michigan and Ann Arbor creates an environment unique among university towns. The University moved to Ann Arbor when the city was only 13 years old, in 1837, and the two have shaped each other since. The result combines one of America's largest public universities and all the amenities of a big city with the atmosphere of a scenic Midwestern town. Main Street, five short blocks from the heart of campus, is home to dozens of restaurants and independent businesses. The city hosts festivals in the spring and summer and it is not uncommon in the winter to find the Main Street businesses hosting ice sculptors and holiday activities. On fall afternoons, the city comes alive with the atmosphere of a Midwestern metropolis, with over 100,000 pedestrians crowding its streets and stores to watch one of the most storied sports traditions in America, Michigan football played in America's largest sports stadium.

Nestled at the heart of Central Campus, the University of Michigan Law School is one of the country's premiere law schools and arguably its most beautiful. The law quad, completed in 1933, is an isolated sanctuary of gothic architecture in the center of a vibrant university town. This traditional, scholarly atmosphere at the center of one of America's great towns, combined with state-of-the-art facilities and top-flight legal scholars, lends a gracious, civil air to the intensity and excitement of the 2008 Symposium.