In order to be eligible for admission, transfer students must be in good standing at another law school accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA). Wake Forest University School of Law prefers that your law school is also a member of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS).
Typical transfer applicants are seeking entry as second-year students in the fall semester (not after only one semester of law school). Applicants transferring from part-time or non-traditional programs should consult with the Office of Admissions & Financial Aid prior to applying.
Apply to transfer »The Executive Associate Dean for Academic Affairs determines the amount and type of credit given for work done in other law schools. This determination is typically based on an interview with the transfer student, a review of curriculum information from the previous law school, and, in some cases, consultation with faculty members who taught the transfer student at the previous law school.
Specifically, the Executive Associate Dean will determine the overall number of credits earned, the number of credits to be attributed to each course, and the number of graduation requirements that the transfer student has satisfied. The Executive Associate Dean’s decision is based on the similarity in subject matter and academic rigor between the course as taught at the previous law school and the course as taught at Wake Forest School of Law. The objective is to grant each transfer student the number of credits and fulfillment of degree requirements that students would receive for completing comparable work at Wake Forest School of Law.
The transfer of credits usually results in the loss of some credit because of differences in graduation requirements and course credits. Please keep in mind, full credit for Legal Analysis, Research, and Writing from the previous law school is generally not given and, depending on the previous law school’s curriculum, some first-year Wake Forest classes may be required.
A student must take at least 60% (54 credit hours) of the minimum credit hours required for the JD degree at Wake Forest School of Law.
Wake Forest School of Law limits the number of pass/fail credits that students may earn to nine (with some exceptions of pass/fail credits in externships, journals, and trial team/moot court, and some experiential education courses). The credits that transfer from your previous law school are not counted as pass/fail credits, but rather as graded credits (although as explained below, those graded credits are not computed in your GPA at Wake Forest). If a transfer student completed courses at the previous law school after the first two full-time semesters (for instance, a course completed during the summer after the first year), those hours do count against the seven pass/fail hours that may count toward the Wake Forest School of Law degree.
Grades earned by a transfer student at another law school are not included in their GPA calculation at Wake Forest School of Law. Transfer students are ranked unofficially after completion of their first semester at Wake Forest School of Law. At that time, the rank is established by a dual rank procedure. For example, if a transfer student receives the same GPA as the 32nd ranked person in the class, he or she will also be ranked 32nd in the class. If the GPA is not identical, ranking is based on best fit. Transfer students are officially ranked cumulatively with their graduating class.
Applications for transfer admission are reviewed upon completion, and applicants will be notified on a rolling basis. We review an applicant’s entire file with particular attention to first-year performance in law school.
Application Deadline: July 1, 2023
If you have a question that is not answered here, please let us know. You can contact the Office of Admissions & Financial Aid at lawadmissions@wfu.edu or 336.758.5437.