Master in Legal Studies (MLS)

Eligibility

The MLS program is open to anyone with a bachelor's degree or equivalent from a U.S. or foreign university. Applicants must describe how the MLS program would benefit their professional and/or educational development. There is no minimum undergraduate GPA requirement, and applicants need not take the LSAT standardized test. Admission to the program is determined by the Assistant Dean for Admissions, with a particular focus on the extent to which the applicant is likely to benefit from the program.

Requirements

To graduate, MLS students must accrue 26 credits in law school courses and complete a significant writing project. The writing project must be of at least 20 pages in length and be written under the close supervision of a faculty member. While MLS students may pursue their degree on a part-time basis, such students must earn their degree within four years of initial enrollment in the program. Credits earned at another law school do not count toward satisfaction of the MLS degree requirements.

Curriculum

MLS students are required to take one of the following introductory law courses:

course - Civil Procedure
course - Contracts I
course - Property
course - Torts
course - Constitutional Law I
course - Criminal Law

Beyond this required first-year class, there are no required courses for MLS students; instead, MLS students are encouraged to meet with the Associate Dean for Student Affairs & Administration to develop a course program tailored to that student's professional goals.

MLS students are not eligible to take the first-year Lawyering course, nor may they participate in Law Review, Moot Court, externship, or clinic course offerings. All other courses, however, are open to the MLS students, including seminars and summer school courses, on the same terms as JD students, except that for non-seminar courses with capped enrollment, MLS students do not necessarily count against the cap, although in courses in which enrollment is limited, JD students may have enrollment priority. For seminars at the maximum JD enrollment, no more than two MLS students are permitted to enroll in addition to the JD students. In all classes, MLS students are graded separate and apart from JD students in the class.