Doctor of Jurisprudence

To qualify for the Doctor of Jurisprudence degree (JD), a student must meet the following requirements:

1. The student must have completed a period of resident study equivalent to at least three academic years.
2. The student must have completed and passed all courses required by the faculty of the School of Law at the time of the student's initial enrollment, except those that have been removed from the list of required courses since the student's initial enrollment. The student must pass at least one seminar as described in the section "Seminars" on the Curriculum  page.
3. Eighty-six semester hours are required for graduation. With the permission of the dean, a student may enroll in a course in another school or college of the University. To count toward graduation from the School of Law, the course must be related to a course of study offered in the School of Law. If the course is in a foreign language, it may be either undergraduate or graduate; in all other fields, only graduate courses may be counted. (Except in the College of Pharmacy and the School of Law, graduate courses at the University are identified by numbers with "8" or "9" as the second digit.) No more than twelve semester hours of such work may be counted. Students who complete undergraduate foreign language courses may apply one credit hour toward the JD degree per two and a half credit hours earned.
4. Dual degree students must have 65 regularly scheduled law courses completed to graduate, not including: Directed Research and Study, Internships, Advanced Clinic, and non-law courses.
5. The student must have a grade point average of at least 1.90 on all work taken in the School of Law.

Curriculum

Required First-Year Courses

• Law 421 or 521, Contracts
• Law 423 or 523, Criminal Law I
• Law 427 or 527, Torts
• Law 431 or 531, Property
• Law 232R or 332R Legal Analysis and Communication, and Law 232S or 332S, Persuasive Writing and Advocacy
• Law 433 or 533, Civil Procedure
• Law 434 or 534, Constitutional Law I
• Such other courses as the dean and faculty of the School of Law may specify

Required Advanced Courses

• One of the following:

Law 251K or 351K, Criminal Procedure: Investigation
Law 270M or 370M, Criminal Procedure: Prosecution
Law 181C, 281C, 381C, or 481C, Constitutional Law II

• Law 285 or 385, Professional Responsibility
• Law 397S, Law Seminar: Writing
• Six credits from a list of experiential learning courses approved each semester by the Dean
• Such other courses as the Dean and Faculty of the School of Law may specify

Seminars

To graduate from the School of Law, a student must take and pass during the second or third year at least one three-semester-hour writing seminar (Law 397S). Writing seminars are small classes that emphasize writing and group discussion. Each writing seminar involves written work by the student that embodies the results of research. Students may take additional writing seminars if space is available.