Registration Information

All students will enroll in their Fall 2023 courses through the MyU registration interface. Students will access the registration system during specific Appointment Time periods based on their degree program and progress towards graduation (3L, 2L, LLM, etc). Once a cohort's Appointment Time starts, all students in that cohort can enter the system and register for classes on a first-come, first-served basis.

Students should review the following materials to prepare for the registration period and submit questions to Law Registration Questions.

Law Student Registration Guidance  

Key Dates for Fall 2023 Registration

Rising 3L JD Students

• FIRST APPOINTMENT TIME - Friday, 4/14/2023 at 12:30pm to Wednesday, 4/19/2023 at 12:01am
• Administrative Enrollment (system closed to students) - 4/19/2023 to 4/20/2023 at 12:30pm
• SECOND APPOINTMENT TIME - Thursday, 4/20/2023 at 12:30pm
• LAW SCHOOL OPEN ENROLLMENT & WAITLISTS - Monday, 4/24/2023 at 12:30pm

Rising 2L JD Students

• FIRST APPOINTMENT TIME - from Monday, 4/17/2023 at 12:30pm to Wednesday, 4/19/2023 at 12:01am
• Administrative Enrollment (system closed to students) - 4/19/2023 to 4/20/2023 at 12:30pm
• SECOND APPOINTMENT TIME - Thursday, 4/20/2023 at 12:30pm
• LAW SCHOOL OPEN ENROLLMENT & WAITLISTS - Monday, 4/24/2023 at 12:30pm

LLM and Exchange Students

• Law School Open Enrollment - begins Monday, 4/24/2023 at 12:30pm

Each student is responsible for planning enrollment to ensure degree requirements are completed prior to the anticipated date of graduation. Students are also expected to regularly review their academic progress and enrollment details via MyU.

For a summary of J.D. degree requirements, see Curriculum & Requirements.

Students have access to a degree audit system called Graduate Planning and Audit System (GPAS). Students may view their GPAS report at any time during their law career by going to MyU: Academics, then selecting the Degree Progress tab and finally clicking the GPAS link.  

For more information about GPAS, review GPAS for Law Students. Students may use the Law GPAS Inquiry form for questions about specific requirements and/or to request advising.

Transfer Students

Transfer students should plan accordingly for required 1L courses that they may need and enroll for upper division courses around the 1L course(s). You are strongly encouraged to enroll for both Professional Responsibility and an Upper Division Constitutional Law Requirement in your second year. Professional Responsibility is a helpful course to complete before taking the MPRE, and the Constitutional Law courses are foundational courses for several other upper division offerings.

Additional degree requirements—including the residency requirement and the in-class instruction requirement—are listed in the Academic Rules (Rules 3-5). For a full listing of JD degree requirements, visit the Curriculum & Requirements page.

Newly admitted transfer and visiting students can find registration information in the Transfer Student Registration Instructions or Visiting Student Registration Instructions.

Second Year Writing Requirement
 

The second year writing requirement is satisfied either by completing a moot court or by serving as a member of the staff of a journal. The Moot Court Offerings and Registration for 2022-2023 provides detailed information about moot courts. 

Note that Moot Court Competition Teams do not satisfy the second year writing requirement (more below). 

You are required to participate in a faculty-supervised writing experience in your second year of law school. One option is a law journal. The other option is a moot court, in which you develop written and oral advocacy skills--two skills essential to the practice of law. 

Moot Court Courses & Competition Teams
 

The Law School's moot court courses are taught by experienced practitioners and student instructors. Many of them have considerable appellate advocacy experience, or substantive experience, or both. In every moot court course, you draft and revise a complete appellate brief. You will also have oral arguments with your instructors, local attorneys, and potentially sitting judges from both the state and federal bench.

We offer four moot court courses (Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Environmental, I.P, and National Moot Court), along with a number of moot court competition teams. Registration for all of the moot court courses occurs during the fall Law School Open Enrollment period, except for National, which is application-only. All of the competition teams are application only. 

As noted above, competition teams do not satisfy the second year writing requirement. 

Students are allowed to participate in both a journal and a moot court, with limited exceptions as follows:

1. 2L Students may enroll in both a law journal and Civil Rights/Civil Liberties Moot Court.
2. 2L Students may enroll in both a law journal and National Moot Court upon demonstrating to the National Moot Court Instructors and the Director of Appellate Advocacy that the student can manage the workload. 
3. 2L Students may enroll in both a law journal and a competition team upon demonstrating that the student can manage the workload. 
4. 2L Students may enroll in both a moot court and a competition team upon demonstrating that the student can manage the workload. 

If you have questions about the moot court options, contact Professor Randall Ryder at ryde0022@umn.edu.

Upper Division Writing Requirement
 

The upper division requirement is satisfied by taking a seminar or other course that satisfies the requirement, completing an independent research paper that is certified by the instructor as meeting the requirement, or by serving as a journal editor. See Academic Rules (Rules 5.3 and 5.4). Consult the Upper Division Writing Requirement list for courses that may meet the requirement next term.

The Law School offers students the opportunity for experiential coursework in the form of the Law Clinics. 

The clinics have policies specific to their program. Before registering for a clinic, review the Clinic Course Guide.

Students with questions about the clinics should contact Sally Nankivell, Law Clinic Administrator at sally@umn.edu. 

Students may earn 1 or 2 credits (and in exceptional circumstances 3 credits) for researching and writing a note, article, memo or other paper on a legal topic. Interested students should register for Independent Research and Writing (IR), LAW 7606 or LAW 7608. 

Students may earn up to 3 credits in a semester for work in a legal practice setting under the supervision of a qualified field supervisor and a faculty advisor. All students must read the Rules for Supervised Field Placements before registering. After consulting the rules, if a student determines that an Independent Field Placement (IFP) is the appropriate course for which to register, students should identify whether or not they intend to use the course to meet the Experiential Learning Requirement which LAW 7607 does, and LAW 7609 does not. Interested students should complete an online application form in order to register for an IFP after obtaining pre-approval from their faculty advisor. The online application form is linked from the IFP listing in the Course Guide. 

Please refer to the Field Placement and Residency Programs Overview to determine the course that best fits your needs.

Current class and exam schedules are posted on the Academic Resources web page. 

Students should refer to the Refund, Drop/Add Deadlines page for important registration-related and tuition refund information. 

Course offerings and schedule, final exam information, and tuition costs can be found on the Summer Session page.

Use MyU to make the following registration changes:

• add an open class
• drop a class
• waitlist for a closed class and if applicable, set up a future swap

The University's One Stop web page has How-to Guides with step-by-step instructions on enrollment processes.

Pursuant to Academic Rule 3.3(c), students who wish to apply non-Law coursework toward their JD degree must submit the Non-Law Course Approval Form (UMN.EDU login required) documenting that the coursework is “substantially law-related.” 

Also note that pursuant to Academic Rule 12.3, non-law coursework DOES NOT factor into calculation of a student’s official Minnesota Law grade point average (GPA), even if such courses are approved for JD credit under Rule 3.3. Grades earned in non-law coursework through the University of Minnesota will appear on the student record, but the grade points will not be included in the cumulative Law School GPA calculation.

Students interested in taking more than one non-law course are advised that the sum total of non-law credits may NOT exceed 6 credits, even if the courses are approved via the Non-Law Course Approval Form. For example, students may take a 4 credit and a 2 credit course, or two 3 credits courses, but not a 3 credit and a 4 credit course. 

Note that if you are a combined degree student seeking to transfer six credits from your partner program under Rule 3.3(d), then you should instead complete the “Credit Transfer Request” available on the Student Forms web page.

Beginning on the first day of the Law School Open Enrollment & Waitlist Registration period, students may add their names to a closed course waitlist using the MyU online registration system. Instructions on how to waitlist for a class can be found in the University's How-to Guide.

IMPORTANT: If you would like to enroll in a closed course that has a time conflict with a course you are currently enrolled in or the addition of the waitlisted course would push you over the 17 credit limit, you must use the “future swap” function AT THE TIME you add yourself to the wait list.