Required Courses

A total of 91 credit hours are required to graduate.* These include the first-year core curriculum, Legal Profession, a seminar, and at least 6 credit hours of experiential courses in the upper division as listed below.

Full-Time Day Course Requirements

First Semester

Civil Procedure (4 credit hours)
Criminal Law (3)
Professional Identity, Practices, and Skills (1)
Legal Analysis, Research and Communications 1 (3)
Torts (4)

Second Semester

Constitutional Law I (3 credit hours)
Contracts (4)
Legal Analysis, Research and Communication II (3)
Property (4)

Upper Division Required Courses

Legal Profession (Professional Ethics) (3 credit hours)
Experiential Courses (at least 6)
Seminar (2)

After completing the first-year core curriculum requirements, students can select from a variety of offerings to complete the minimum required credit hours to graduate. The majority of upper-division courses are electives except for the requirements listed below.

Seminar Requirement

Seminars involve a small group of students who engage in extensive research and discussion under a faculty member's supervision. Seminars include a thesis-driven research paper that is at least 20-25 pages in length. A journal comment/note or directed research will not satisfy the seminar requirement.

Legal Profession

Legal Profession focuses on the ethics and professional responsibilities of the legal profession and its members. It is a required 3-credit-hour course that examines the duties of lawyers to the profession, their clients and the larger community.

Experiential Course Requirement

Courses meeting this requirement provide students with the experience of applying legal theory and skills to simulated or real client matters. Client representation courses include:

Children's Permanency Clinic
Civil Advocacy Clinic
Criminal Defense Clinic
Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic
Human Rights at Home Clinic
Medical Legal Partnership Clinic
Field Placement

Many experiential classes are also available that provide students with the opportunity to practice legal skills in a variety of simulated client situations. These include, but are not limited to:

Advanced Legal Research
Civil Practice
Client Counseling
Estate Planning
Law Practice Management
Mediation
Moot Court I & II
Negotiations
Transactional Drafting
Trial Advocacy I & II

*A total of 89 credit hours are required for students beginning after the fall 2025 semester.

Part-Time Day Course Requirements

The Part-Time Day Program requires an 11-hour schedule (listed below), which postpones the asterisked courses below until semesters three and four respectively.

First Semester

Civil Procedure (4 credit hours)
Professional Identity, Practices, and Skills (1)
Legal Analysis, Research and Communications 1 (3)
Criminal Law (3)
*Torts (4)

Second Semester

Constitutional Law I (3 credit hours)
Contracts (4)
Legal Analysis, Research and Communication II (3)
*Property (4)

Third Semester

Torts (4)
Electives (up to 7 hours)

Fourth Semester

Property (4)
Legal Profession (3)
Electives (up to 4 hours)

Upper-Division Required Courses

Legal Profession (Professional Ethics) (3 credit hours)
Experiential Courses (at least 6)
Seminar (2)

Part-Time Evening Course Requirements

Students in the Part-Time Evening Program complete their required first-year core curriculum in two years by taking courses scheduled in the evening beginning after 6 p.m. Some classes will include both part-time evening students in their first year and part-time evening students in their second year. Course sequencing will be based on your matriculating year (even-numbered or odd-numbered year). The course sequence is as follows: