University of The Philippines College of Law - The U.P. Law Complex

The U.P. Law Complex

The main offices and classrooms of the college are located inside Malcolm Hall within the U.P. Diliman Campus in Quezon City. The building is named after Associate Justice George Malcolm, who in 1911 became the first permanent dean of the college. The building itself, one of the oldest in the Diliman campus, was designed by the noted architect Juan M. Arellano. It was erected shortly before the Japanese invasion of the Philippines during World War II, but it was only after the University of the Philippines transferred its main campus to Diliman in 1948 that Malcolm Hall was actually used. During the deanship of Raul Pangalangan from 2000 to 2005, extensive efforts were made to renovate and modernize the facilities of Malcolm Hall.

Malcolm Hall also houses the University of the Philippines Law Library, formally known as Espiritu Hall. It the largest academic law library in the country. It contains the largest and most up-to-date collection of Philippine legal materials as well as foreign statute and case books and various law journals. The library is open to U.P. law students and professors. It is also available to non-UP law students subject to proper identification and payment of library service fees.

Several of the classrooms in Malcolm Hall are named after prominent graduates and faculty members, such as Ambrosio Padilla, Bienvenido Ambion, and Violeta Calvo-Drilon—in the latter case, creating some controversy, given the involvement of the deceased in an Integrated Bar of the Philippines election scandal that ultimately needed the involvement of the Philippine Supreme Court. There is also an airconditioned moot court resembling the trial courts in the Philippines, a student lounge and an auditorium. Fronting the auditorium is the main lobby of Malcolm Hall. On its walls are inscribed a quotation from the American Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. -

Adjacent to Malcolm Hall is Bocobo Hall, which houses the University of the Philippines Law Center. The Law Center was established in 1964 as an agency attached to the College of Law, for the purpose of conducting continuing legal education programs, as well as legal research and publications. The Law Center is the university center for legal publishing, legal research, and law conferences. It is composed of 4 Institutes, namely, the Institute of Government and Law Reform, the Institute of Human Rights, the Institute of International Legal Studies, and the Institute of Judicial Administration. The Law Center also hosts the offices of the Office of the National Administrative Registrar, an agency of the Philippine government which registers all national government statutes and issuances.

To "popularize" the law, the Law Center conducts programs in legal literacy and street law ("practical law") in cooperation with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), student organizations, and the local barangays. Extension programs happen in the form of barangay legal education seminars to reach the grassroots level.