Top Law Schools

Not that transferring law schools hardly ever works out, but if you are able by luck to transfer to a Top 14 law school like Georgetown, is it possible to graduate a semester early if you take a credit hour overload in the Spring and Fall semester, or is it impossible because transfers must adhere to a 2 year residency requirement? Has anyone ever transferred law schools and still finished a semester early?

sarcasticzebra wrote:Not that transferring law schools hardly ever works out, but if you are able by luck to transfer to a Top 14 law school like Georgetown, is it possible to graduate a semester early if you take a credit hour overload in the Spring and Fall semester, or is it impossible because transfers must adhere to a 2 year residency requirement? Has anyone ever transferred law schools and still finished a semester early?

Most schools give transfers a fixed number of credits (usually the same amount 1Ls have at the end of the year). So no, I don't believe it is for transfers. Why would you want to do something like that?

You can't do it by taking a credit overload, but you can do it by taking a full summer load twice.
ABA rules require a minimum of 6 semesters for a full time student and 8 semesters for a part time student, but summer school counts as a half-semester, so two summers equal a whole semester

The downside is that you cannot work during the summer and your graduation date doesn't flow with traditional hiring (by firms or judges), so unless you have a guaranteed job lined up, it's a bad idea


Also, scholarships often don't cover summer classes

guano wrote:The downside is that you cannot work during the summer and your graduation date doesn't flow with traditional hiring (by firms or judges), so unless you have a guaranteed job lined up, it's a bad idea.

Yep, almost always a bad idea.