Admission to Graduate Degree Programs

Michigan Law welcomes applications from around the world and from all segments of the legal profession—private practice, academia, government, NGOs, public service, and corporations. Because we seek to create a diverse and intellectually outstanding student body, and because space is limited, admission to the graduate program is highly competitive, resulting in a number of qualified applicants necessarily being turned away.

Clearly, a very important consideration in the selection process is the academic and professional record of applicants in their own countries. Nonetheless, looking at grades alone does not provide an adequate measure to predict the outcome of our selection procedure. Great attention is paid to all details in the application, and letters of reference are taken very seriously. Ultimately, we seek people with proven intellectual and professional abilities whose matriculation allows us to build a heterogeneous group of graduate students representing a wide array of qualities, including varied intellectual interests, different countries and traditions, diverse life and professional achievements and experience, and an ability to benefit from graduate studies.

All applicants must have completed the first degree in law required for law practice or law teaching in the country in which their law studies were pursued. U.S. applicants must have satisfied the J.D. requirements at an ABA-accredited law school. In any given year, those accepted to our graduate programs have completed their legal education with distinction, graduating at or near the very top of their classes or otherwise demonstrating exceptional academic ability.

Application Materials

Applicants to the graduate degree programs at the University of Michigan Law School must submit the following materials to the Graduate Admissions Office. (Regarding the Research Scholar application process, please refer to the Research Scholar Program page.)

1. The completed application form.

2. A curriculum vitae (résumé).

3.Two essays to supplement the résumé: a personal statement and a statement of purpose written by the applicant in English as further described on the application form.

4. Two letters of recommendation written in English, or in the recommender’s native language accompanied by a certified English translation, at least one of which must be from a member of the applicant’s law faculty. (Although we require only two letters, applicants are welcome to submit more than two if they wish.) Letters of recommendation should be from persons who know the applicant well, are able to evaluate his or her capacity for advanced legal studies and professional success, and can comment with specificity on the applicant’s intellectual accomplishments and professional promise. It is helpful to learn how the applicant compares to others in his or her law school cohort. (Letters specifically addressing the applicant’s prospects for an academic career if that is a stated professional goal are desirable. It is most helpful if this letter is from the dean of the law faculty where the applicant has studied, is working, or hopes to work in the future, although a letter from a law faculty member will be accepted.) Letters of recommendation should be on the official stationery of the recommender and should be submitted directly to either LSAC or the Law School. If necessary, they may be sent to the Law School by the applicant, as long as they are provided in an envelope bearing the signature of the recommender across the seal.     

A form to be used when the applicant requests letters of recommendation is enclosed with the application. Please photocopy the form to have sufficient copies for all recommenders. Applicants should provide a copy of the form, with the applicant’s portion completed, to each of their recommenders. The recommender should then complete the appropriate portion of the form and attach it to the original recommendation letter before it is sent to the Law School or to LSAC.

5. Official transcripts from all undergraduate, graduate, and law schools attended. Official academic records should give results of all course work taken as well as results of yearly or comprehensive exams. Transcripts must be in English or must be accompanied by a certified English translation. Whenever possible, transcripts must be sent directly to the University of Michigan Law School Graduate Admissions Office from the academic institution and must bear the registrar’s signature or the institution’s seal. (If transcripts cannot be sent to us directly from the applicant’s academic institution(s), the applicant should send them to us in a sealed envelope bearing the registrar’s signature or institution’s seal.) All transcripts should include, if available, official certification of the applicant’s rank in class (for example, fourth in a class of 123 students), the applicant’s cumulative grade point average, and receipt of honors, if applicable. A description on the institution’s grading system, including an indication of normal length of the degree program and whether failing grades show on the transcript, should accompany the transcripts. If the institution does not issue standard descriptions, the applicant should provide his/her own, based on personal experience.

6. A current official TOEFL or IELTS score unless both of the following are true:  (1) the applicant is a native speaker of English, and (2) the university education was conducted primarily in English.  Students in our graduate degree programs must have a high level of English proficiency in reading, writing, speaking, and listening.  The minimum required scores are: 600 (PBT), 250 (CBT) and a TWE of 4.0, or 98 (iBT), or 7.0 on the academic IELTS test, with fairly evenly distributed subscores.  Most admitted students have higher scores.  The English tests must be taken before January 1, and must be sent directly from the institutions to the Law School.  Applications cannot be reviewed without valid TOEFL or IELTS scores.  If an applicant has taken multiple tests, all results must be submitted with the application.  The University of Michigan Law School's TOEFL institution code is 1839 03.

Detailed information about the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and IELTS (International English Testing System) can be obtained through their respective websites at www.ets.org/toefl and www.ielts.org.

7. There are two special requirements for SJD applicants:

a) S.J.D. applicants must submit a prospectus of the proposed thesis topic in sufficient detail to indicate its significance and originality. It should describe the nature of the topic, the questions to be explored, and the research methodology.

b) Letters of recommendation for an SJD applicant must address the applicant’s demonstrated capacity for advanced legal scholarship and prospects for an academic career. If an applicant has been enrolled in an LL.M. program at another U.S. law school, one of the letters of recommendation must be from a faculty member at that law school. In the absence of these materials, applicants to the S.J.D. program will be considered only for admission to the LL.M. program.

8. The application fee is $75. If you are applying online, this fee must be paid by credit card before submitting the application. If you prefer to submit a hardcopy application, please make this amount, in U.S. Dollars, payable to the University of Michigan Law School by travelers check, personal check drawn on a U.S. bank account, or international money order. If paying the application fee represents a financial hardship, applicants may submit an application fee waiver request [PDF].

Application Methods

We’re pleased to accept applications prepared in any of the formats described below.  Applicants should use the method most convenient for them. However, applicants who wish to use a credit card to pay for the application fee must use one of the online application options.

Hardcopy Applications are available by request or by downloading the application in pdf format. You will need Acrobat Reader (Version 6.0 or higher will work best). The application fee must be included in the form of a check or money order (see above), or our fee waiver approval, as the case may be.

Online Applications can be submitted via CollegeNet (recommended) or LSAC's individual e-app at http://lsac.org. 

You may also use the Credential Assembly Service of LSAC, but please note that this new service is currently experiencing technical problems. Ultimately, it is intended to save you time and money if you wish to apply to a number of U.S. or Canadian graduate law degree programs. You will only need to obtain your transcripts and other required credentials once in order to make them available for all of your applications. For a registration fee of $75 (U.S.) plus $16 per law school, LSAC will collect and distribute your university records and TOEFL scores. You may additionally choose to have your non-American university credentials evaluated and authenticated by LSAC. You will be able to use these services to apply to participating U.S. and Canadian law schools for a period of five years. For additional information about this service, go to http://lsac.org/llm/default.asp. Please note that you must still complete our application and submit the application fee of $75.

The completed application and all supporting materials must reach us between October and the end of January preceding the academic year for which admission is sought. Applications will be reviewed only when they are complete. It is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure that the application is complete. All applications which are ready for review by the end of January will have equal chances for admission; thereafter, admissions decisions are made on a rolling basis. Applicants will receive notice of decision by late March or early April.

All correspondence should be submitted to:

The University of Michigan Law School
Graduate Admissions
625 South State Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, U.S.A.
Telephone: 734.764.0537, Fax: 734.647.3218
E-Mail: law.grad.admissions@umich.edu