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upalittletoolate wrote:May be considered a thread hijack, but does anyone know how difficult it is to achieve Virginia residency? Is it doable before applying/after 1L/etc.?

holydonkey wrote:RE: VA domicile

I have a decent amount of experience with this. For the record, although Virginia's Council of Higher Education sets a general domicile guideline, schools have some room to interpret the policy. There are three public law schools in Virginia, UVA, William & Mary, and George Mason. Washington & Lee is Private (as are U Richmond, Liberty, Regent, etc).

For the public schools, the general things they will look at when determining domicile include location of residence for 1 year, your place of employment for 1 year, where you have paid taxes for the past year, your driver's license, voter's registration, and vehicle registration. For each of these schools, you cannot claim VA domicile your second year - you must enter classified as a VA resident to receive in-state benefits.

While all of the above requirements must be "considered" when determining domicile, each school decides how much they will weigh each requirement and how many of the above things must be fulfilled to be classified in-state. This means it is certainly possible to be classified in-state at UVA and out-of-state at George Mason, in-state at GMU and out-of-state at William & Mary. From what I've heard George Mason generally has the least stringent requirements for domicile, UVA is somewhere in the middle, and William & Mary is the most difficult.