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University of Wyoming College of Law

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Last updated: October 14, 2026

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University of Wyoming College of Law

The University of Wyoming College of Law is a public law school in Laramie, Wyoming, that enrolled a first-year class of 74 students in Fall 2025 from 483 completed applications, with a median LSAT of 156 and a median undergraduate GPA of 3.55. It is ranked #112 (tie) in the 2026 U.S. News rankings, and it is the only law school in the state of Wyoming. The central decision issue for admitted applicants is that Wyoming pairs one of the lowest resident tuitions of any ABA-approved law school in the country — $19,244 in annual tuition and fees for residents, with 89% of students receiving grants and no conditional-scholarship exposure worth worrying about — with a very small cohort of 230 J.D. students and an employment network anchored almost entirely in Wyoming and the Mountain West, at an approximate 2026–27 cost of attendance of $36,844 for residents and $56,434 for non-residents.

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University of Wyoming Law at a Glance

Category Latest information
Founded 1920 (the University of Wyoming itself was founded 1886 and opened in 1887)
Type Public
ABA approval or accreditation Council Approved Since 1923
Location Laramie, Wyoming
Latest U.S. News rank #112 tie (2026 edition)
Latest completed applications 483 (Fall 2025, 2025 509 report)
Latest acceptance rate 35.82% (Fall 2025)
Latest LSAT median 156 (Fall 2025)
Latest GPA median 3.55 (Fall 2025)
Latest entering class 74 (all full-time; Fall 2025)
Current tuition $19,244 resident / $38,834 non-resident (annual, tuition plus mandatory fees)
Current estimated cost of attendance $36,844 resident / $56,434 non-resident (computed, living off campus)
Latest first-time bar passage 83.0% (2025 first-time takers, +7.0 points vs. the jurisdictions' 76.0% average)
Latest bar-required employment 85.9% of the Class of 2025 (55 of 64 graduates)
Current dean Not independently confirmed in the sources reviewed

The admissions figures are drawn from the University of Wyoming College of Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (483 completed applications, 173 offers, 35.82% acceptance rate, 71 enrollees from the applicant pool, first-year class of 74, total J.D. enrollment 230). The 509 report lists tuition as per-credit lines — $576 per credit for residents and $1,229 per credit for non-residents, plus $1,964 in annual fees — which at 30 credits per year yields $19,244 resident and $38,834 non-resident, figures that match the U.S. News profile exactly. Cost-of-attendance totals are arithmetic from those published lines plus the school's living-expense allowances rather than a single published figure. The current dean was not identified in the sources retrieved for this profile and is marked unconfirmed rather than guessed. The 509 report's tuition fields also returned a blank annual figure alongside the per-credit rates, which appears to be a reporting artifact; the per-credit basis is used throughout this profile.

Introduction

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The University of Wyoming College of Law, founded in 1920, is the law school of the University of Wyoming and the only law school in the state of Wyoming. It sits in Laramie, Wyoming, in the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of 7,165 feet. Legal instruction began on a single floor of the university library building, the school moved to its own facility in 1953, and it relocated to its current building in 1977 as class sizes grew. It has been approved by the American Bar Association since 1923 and is accredited by the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.

The school's identity is bound up with its setting and its scale. Wyoming is a single-law-school state with a small bar and a legal economy built on energy, natural resources, ranching, water, public lands and federal agencies — a profile that gives the College of Law an unusual concentration of alumni in state government, the state and federal judiciary, and the energy and natural-resources bar. The school has been named one of the best values in legal education by the National Jurist repeatedly, a distinction rooted in a resident tuition that is among the lowest of any ABA-approved law school in the country.

With a total J.D. enrollment of 230 and a first-year class of 74, Wyoming is among the smallest law schools in the United States. Its identity rests on four pillars: an exceptionally low resident price combined with broad, low-risk grant aid; a very small cohort with a strong student-to-faculty ratio and close faculty contact; a placement network concentrated in Wyoming and the Mountain West, with a notably high federal clerkship rate for a school of its size; and a distinctive set of energy, natural resources and environment-related academic programs, including a joint J.D./M.A. in Environment and Natural Resources.

Rankings and Reputation

Wyoming's reputation rests less on its U.S. News position than on value and on regional placement. The school has repeatedly been named among the best values in legal education by the National Jurist, and its graduates dominate the Wyoming bench and bar, including the state's Supreme Court, its federal district and appellate judges, and its statewide elected offices. Its federal clerkship rate — 5.0% of the Class of 2024, ranked #33 nationally on that metric — is the single strongest placement statistic in its profile and is unusual for a school ranked in the 110s.

Overall ranking

U.S. News edition Wyoming rank
2026 112 (tie) of 194
2024 111

The 2026 placement of #112 (tie) out of 194 is from the current U.S. News profile, and the 2024 figure of #111 is from Wyoming's Wikipedia entry; the two are close enough to suggest a stable position rather than a trend in either direction. Editions prior to 2024 were not independently confirmed in the sources reviewed. Applicants should treat movement within the 105–120 band as immaterial to practical outcomes, which at Wyoming are driven by the Wyoming legal market, the school's alumni network in state government and the judiciary, and the resident price rather than by rank position.

Specialty rankings

Specific U.S. News specialty rank numbers for the current edition were not retrieved in machine-readable form for this profile and are therefore not listed. What the school's programmatic record establishes is a distinctive concentration in energy, natural resources and environmental law, expressed through its joint J.D./M.A. in Environment and Natural Resources and through the Wyoming Law Review, the school's student-edited journal, which publishes scholarship on public lands, water and natural-resources law. U.S. News lists clinical training, dispute resolution, environmental law, health care law, intellectual property law, international law, business/corporate law, constitutional law, contracts/commercial law and criminal law among the school's program areas. The school has also been ranked by U.S. News for its legal writing program in past editions.

Independent metric rankings

Metric Value National rank
Federal clerkship rate 5.0% #33
Student-to-faculty ratio 9.2:1 #39 (tie)
Bar-required employment (FT, long-term) 85.0% #71
Presence of minority faculty 18.9% #88
Acceptance rate (selectivity) 35.8% #99
Overall employment at 10 months 92.5% #112
LSAT composite 156.3 (153 · 156 · 160) #123
GPA composite 3.56 (3.32 · 3.55 · 3.80) #124
Bar Passage Rate (first-time) 75.6% (+2.9 vs. Wyoming's 72.7%) #128
Presence of female faculty 40.5% #144 (tie)
Highest tuition (full-time) $19,244 #387

Source: ILRG's 2026 Wyoming Law profile, built on December 2025 ABA 509 disclosures. ILRG's bar passage and employment figures cover the 2024 cohort, while the school's own reported figures below cover 2025 — both are presented so the trend and any conflict can be read. The tuition rank of #387 of 275 distinct rates is the second-lowest in this profile series and is the metric on which Wyoming performs best by a wide margin; the federal clerkship rate of #33 is the strongest placement metric.

Admissions: What It Takes to Get In

Entering class (Fall 2025)

Admissions metric Fall 2025
Completed applications 483
Offers of admission 173
Acceptance rate 35.82%
Enrollees from applicant pool 71
Total in first-year class 74
Yield (enrollees / offers) 41.04%

The first-year class of 74 was entirely full-time; Wyoming operates no part-time or evening division. No students transferred in and one transferred out in the reporting year. Total J.D. enrollment was 230. The small applicant pool is the defining feature of Wyoming's admissions profile: 483 applications is the smallest pool in this profile series by a wide margin — roughly one-fifth of Brooklyn Law's 4,600 — which means the school's selectivity statistics move on very small numbers and a handful of applicants can shift the acceptance rate by several points.

LSAT and GPA

Statistic 25th percentile Median 75th percentile
LSAT 153 156 160
Undergraduate GPA 3.32 3.55 3.80

Interpreting the numbers

Wyoming's 35.82% acceptance rate places it #99 nationally on selectivity — the most selective school in this profile series apart from Arkansas and Michigan State, and a striking transformation for a school that admitted 54.9% of applicants in 2019. The band is the widest in this series at the top end and the narrowest at the bottom: a 25th-percentile LSAT of 153 and a 25th-percentile GPA of 3.32 mean Wyoming admits a real cohort below its medians, which is a genuine opportunity for applicants with strong non-numeric credentials, while the 75th-percentile LSAT of 160 keeps the top of the class within a single point of the median. The yield of 41.04% is healthy for a school this size and suggests that admitted applicants who choose Wyoming do so deliberately, which is consistent with a self-selecting pool drawn heavily from the Mountain West.

The trend since 2019 shows a substantial tightening:

Metric 2019 2025
Acceptance rate 54.9% 35.8%
LSAT median 153 156
LSAT 25th–75th 150–156 153–160
GPA median 3.38 3.55
GPA 25th–75th 3.08–3.67 3.32–3.80

A 19-point drop in acceptance rate and a three-point rise in median LSAT over six years is a meaningful repositioning, and it coincided with Wyoming's repeated recognition as a best-value school — a low price attracts more applicants, which allows a small school to become more selective without expanding. The 2019 LSAT 25th percentile of 150 rising to 153 is the more consequential change for applicants at the margin.

Application timing

The application fee is $50. The 2025 ABA Standard 509 report lists the application deadline and financial-aid deadline as blank fields, so the operative dates must be confirmed from the school's admissions pages before publication. The school requires J.D. applicants to apply through the Law School Admission Council, and its ABA disclosures note a distinctive enrollment condition: for students matriculating in the fall, each enrolled student's official transcript must be on file before October 15, and a student will be administratively withdrawn from classes if the official transcript is not received by that date. Wyoming offers the J.D. alongside joint degrees in Environment and Natural Resources (J.D./M.A.), Public Administration (J.D./M.P.A.) and Business Administration (J.D./M.B.A.).

Cost, Scholarships, and Debt

Tuition

Wyoming's tuition is charged per credit: $576 per credit for residents and $1,229 per credit for non-residents, plus $1,964 in annual mandatory fees. At a standard load of 30 credits per year, that yields $19,244 resident and $38,834 non-resident — the two figures U.S. News also reports.

Item Resident Non-resident
Tuition per credit $576 $1,229
Tuition at 30 credits per year $17,280 $36,870
Mandatory fees (annual) $1,964 $1,964
Annual tuition and fees $19,244 $38,834

The 509 report lists the annual tuition fields as $0 alongside the per-credit rates, which is a reporting artifact rather than a statement that tuition is free; the per-credit basis is the operative one and reconciles exactly to the U.S. News figures. The resident price of $19,244 is ranked #387 of 275 distinct tuition rates nationally — the second-lowest in this profile series after UNM — and it is the single most important fact in Wyoming's profile. The non-resident premium is substantial at $19,590 per year, so residency is the largest financial variable. Wyoming residents also qualify for the state's tuition structure as residents of the state that funds the university, and applicants from certain western states may qualify for reduced rates through regional exchange programs; those programs were not verified for the law school in the sources reviewed and should be confirmed directly with the admissions office. Tuition has risen modestly by the standards of this series: from $16,775 resident and $33,520 non-resident in 2019 to $19,244 and $38,834 in 2025, increases of 14.7% and 15.9% respectively — far slower than the room-and-board growth over the same period.

Cost of attendance

Expense Resident Non-resident
Tuition and fees $19,244 $38,834
Living expenses, off campus $17,600 $17,600
Estimated cost of attendance (off campus) $36,844 $56,434
Living expenses, on campus $20,700 $20,700
Estimated cost of attendance (on campus) $39,944 $59,534
Living expenses, at home $12,300 $12,300
Estimated cost of attendance (at home) $31,544 $51,134

The totals above are arithmetic from the school's per-credit tuition, its $1,964 annual fee line, and the three living-expense allowances reported in the 2025 509 report: $20,700 on campus, $17,600 off campus and $12,300 at home. Wyoming does not publish a single combined cost-of-attendance line in the 509 report, so these should be labelled as computed if quoted elsewhere. Three features of the budget stand out. First, the off-campus allowance is *lower* than the on-campus allowance by $3,100, which is unusual — most schools treat the two as equivalent or make off-campus the more expensive option — and it means students who rent rather than live in university housing capture a real saving. Second, the at-home allowance of $12,300 cuts a further $5,300 from the off-campus budget. Third, the living allowance now approaches the resident tuition line: at $17,600 off campus against $19,244 in tuition and fees, living costs are roughly 48% of a resident student's total budget. Cost of living has grown faster than tuition: ILRG records room and board rising from $12,703 in 2019 to $17,600 in 2025, a 39% increase against tuition's 15%. Independent modelling puts the three-year sticker cost at $163,410 with an estimated three-year net cost of $138,441.

Financial aid

Per the 2025 Standard 509 report, 203 students — 89% — received grants, with a median grant of $8,000, a 25th percentile of $6,000 and a 75th percentile of $13,460.

Metric Value
Students receiving grants 203
Percentage receiving grants 89%
75th percentile grant $13,460
50th percentile (median) grant $8,000
25th percentile grant $6,000
Estimated three-year net cost (HeyFutureLawyer) $138,441

Coverage is broad at 89%, and the awards are small in absolute terms — a $8,000 median covers 42% of the $19,244 resident price and 21% of the $38,834 non-resident price — but the pattern here is fundamentally different from the private schools in this profile series: because the underlying resident price is so low, a modest grant produces a low net cost. A resident receiving the median award faces roughly $11,244 in annual tuition and fees plus $17,600 in living expenses, and the independent three-year net-cost estimate of $138,441 — which implies roughly $46,147 per year — is among the lowest in this series despite the small median award. The school does not appear on the list of institutions with aggressive conditional-scholarship structures, which reinforces the low-risk character of the aid programme.

Conditional scholarships: Wyoming does award conditional scholarships, but the reduction rate is low in both absolute and relative terms, and it has improved:

Academic year Conditional scholarships offered Reduced or eliminated Loss rate
2024–25 67 3 4.5%
2023–24 80 3 3.8%
2022–23 61 7 11.5%

A 4.5% loss rate in the most recent year and under 4% the year before places Wyoming among the lowest-risk schools in this profile series on scholarship retention — far below Brooklyn Law's 19.2% and American's 41.5% — and the trend is in the right direction. Applicants should still read the retention terms in their award letters, but the aggregate data supports treating a Wyoming award as close to a four-year number.

Debt perspective

Average indebtedness and the proportion of graduates borrowing were not retrieved in machine-readable form for this profile; the school's financial-aid pages and the ABA graduate-indebtedness data should be consulted before publication, and no debt figure is asserted here. The structural reasons to expect a favourable debt profile are nevertheless clear and documented: a resident tuition of $19,244 ranked #387 nationally, 89% grant coverage, a conditional-scholarship loss rate under 5%, a living allowance that is lower off campus than on, and an at-home option at $12,300. Whether Wyoming operates a loan repayment assistance program, and on what terms, was not confirmed in the sources reviewed and should be verified before applicants rely on one. The arithmetic suggests a resident student receiving the median grant would borrow modestly by national standards, while a non-resident paying $38,834 in tuition and fees with a $8,000 median grant would face a materially larger burden — which is the crux of the residency decision at Wyoming.

Employment Outcomes

Employment (Class of 2025)

The school reports the following outcomes for its Class of 2025, which comprised 64 graduates:

Employment metric Class of 2025
Total graduates 64
Employed ten months after graduation 90.6% (58 of 64)
In jobs requiring bar admission 85.9% (55 of 64)
Modeled salary, covered job categories $82,929

For comparison, ILRG's 509-based tabulation of the Class of 2024 gives 85.0% full-time, long-term bar-required employment (national rank #71), 92.5% overall employment at ten months (rank #112), and a 5.0% federal clerkship rate (rank #33). The federal clerkship figure is the standout statistic: 5.0% of a 64-person class is roughly three graduates, and it ranks 33rd nationally — better than Brooklyn Law (#103), Albany Law (#92) and every other school in the mid-rank band of this profile series, and comparable to far higher-ranked schools. For a school with 230 students and a single-state market, that is a genuinely strong placement signal.

The sector-by-sector breakdown, salary percentiles (as distinct from the modeled median), firm-size distribution and geographic placement for the Class of 2025 were not retrieved in machine-readable form for this profile. The school publishes eight consecutive years of ABA Employment Summary reports — for the Classes of 2018 through 2025 — and those line items should be pulled from the source PDFs rather than estimated. ILRG's salary statistics for its report are drawn from the Class of 2023 and exclude JD-advantage positions.

What these numbers mean

The verified figures describe a small school with a strong, stable and geographically narrow placement record. Of 64 graduates in the Class of 2025, 58 were employed ten months out — 90.6% — and 55 of them, 85.9%, held jobs requiring bar admission, which means the ratio of real legal jobs to odd jobs among the employed is excellent and there is very little JD-advantage padding. The modeled median salary of $82,929 is modest in absolute terms but must be read against a resident cost of attendance of $36,844: a Wyoming resident graduating with modest borrowing into an $83,000 salary is in a materially better financial position than a graduate of a $116,000-a-year private school earning $124,000. The 5.0% federal clerkship rate ranked #33 nationally is the clearest evidence that the school's faculty and its alumni network in the federal bench actively place students, and the 92.5% overall employment rate for the prior cohort shows the school recovers well even on the broader measure. The weaknesses are scale and reach: with 230 students and a Wyoming-anchored network, the school cannot offer the breadth of a large-market programme, and salary upside is capped by the state's legal economy. Applicants should treat the employment rate, the bar-required rate and the clerkship rate as verified and the salary percentiles and sector mix as unavailable.

Bar passage

Bar statistic Value
First-time passage, 2025 83.0% (49 of 59 first-time takers passed), +7.0 points vs. the jurisdictions' 76.0% average
First-time passage, 2024 (ILRG tabulation) 75.6% (+2.9 points vs. Wyoming's 72.7% statewide rate), rank #128
First-time passage, 2019 (ILRG tabulation) 80.4% (+7.7 points vs. Wyoming's 72.7%)
Primary bar state Wyoming

The pattern is consistent and favourable: Wyoming's first-time takers have beaten the Wyoming state average in every year for which data was retrieved, by +7.7 points in 2019, +2.9 points in 2024 and +7.0 points in 2025. In absolute terms the rate has moved between 75.6% and 83.0% across those years, and the 2025 figure of 83.0% against a 76.0% jurisdictional average is the strongest result in the retrieved series. Two caveats matter. First, the cohort is tiny — 59 first-time takers in 2025 — so a single candidate moves the rate by 1.7 percentage points, and year-to-year swings should not be read as trends. Second, the ILRG 2024 tabulation of 75.6% sits 7.4 points below the school's 2025 figure, which reflects a different cohort rather than a contradiction. The honest reading is that Wyoming first-time takers pass at rates in the high 70s to low 80s, consistently several points above the Wyoming average, and that a first-attempt pass is likely for a median student.

Where graduates go

Wyoming's placement is concentrated in Wyoming and the Mountain West, which follows directly from the school's single-state market and from the fact that it is the only law school in the state. The 85.9% bar-required employment rate combined with a 5.0% federal clerkship rate describes a pipeline into the Wyoming bar, the state and federal bench, state government, county prosecutors' and defenders' offices, and the energy, natural-resources, water and public-lands practices that dominate the state's legal economy — along with the small firms and solo practices that serve a rural state. The detailed sector and geographic distribution for the Class of 2025 was not retrieved and should be taken from the school's ABA Employment Summary report. Prospective applicants aiming at Wyoming or Mountain West practice, at federal clerkships, at state government or at energy and natural-resources law should read these numbers as strong and the price as exceptional. Applicants aiming at large-firm or coastal practice should weigh the small network, the modeled median salary of $82,929 and the 230-student alumni base accordingly.

Academics and Programs

The J.D. is a full-time, three-year programme; Wyoming operates no part-time or evening division. In the 2025 509 report the school reported 25 full-time faculty, 12 non-full-time faculty and 3 librarians — one of the smallest full-time faculties in this profile series, and small even relative to its 230-student enrollment. ILRG computes a 9.2:1 student-to-faculty ratio across 37 total faculty, ranked #39 nationally on that measure, while U.S. News reports 7.9:1; both figures describe a favourable ratio, and the small faculty is the mechanism by which a 74-person entering class gets close faculty contact. The faculty is 40.5% female (#144 nationally) and 18.9% racial or ethnic minority (#88 nationally). The school also offers joint degrees: J.D./M.A. in Environment and Natural Resources, J.D./M.P.A. and J.D./M.B.A..

Curriculum and special strengths

Wyoming's distinctive academic identity is energy, natural resources and environmental law. The joint J.D./M.A. in Environment and Natural Resources is the school's signature graduate programme, and the Wyoming Law Review — the school's student-edited journal — publishes scholarship on public lands, water, energy and natural-resources law, a focus that reflects the state's economy and the volume of federal public-land litigation in Wyoming. The setting itself is part of the curriculum: Laramie sits in the Rocky Mountains at 7,165 feet, adjacent to federal lands, national forests and the energy basins that generate much of the state's legal work, which gives the school practical access to the agencies, firms and disputes that define the practice. U.S. News lists clinical training, dispute resolution, environmental law, health care law, intellectual property law, international law, business/corporate law, constitutional law, contracts/commercial law and criminal law among the school's program areas, and the school has previously been ranked by U.S. News for its legal writing programme. The school's building, occupied since 1977, contains classrooms, moot court rooms, seminar rooms, a student lounge, lockers and the law library.

Clinics and experiential learning

The specific clinic roster, client populations, externship structure and semester-in-practice options were not retrieved in machine-readable form for this profile and should be filled from the school's academic and clinical programme pages before publication; no clinic names are asserted here. What can be documented is the institutional commitment to hands-on training that the school advertises, the presence of a moot court room and seminar facilities in its building, and the small-cohort structure — a 74-person entering class and a 9.2:1 ratio — which in practice means that clinical and simulation seats are available to a larger share of the class than at a school of 1,000 students. The school's ABA disclosures itemise curricular offerings, class sizes, seminars and clinical and co-curricular offerings, which is the authoritative source for the roster.

Student Life and Location

Living in Laramie

The University of Wyoming College of Law is located at 1000 E. University Ave., Dept. 3035, Laramie, WY 82070, on the main university campus in Laramie, in the Rocky Mountains at 7,165 feet of elevation. Laramie is a small college town in southeastern Wyoming, roughly two hours from Denver and within reach of the state capital at Cheyenne. The location shapes both the experience and the cost: housing and food are the dominant living cost, but the school's allowances are among the most favourable in this profile series — $17,600 off campus, which is $3,100 *below* its own $20,700 on-campus allowance, and $12,300 at home. The off-campus figure compares with $36,528 at Brooklyn Law and $27,152 at MSU Law, which is why a Wyoming resident's total cost of attendance of roughly $36,844 is roughly a third of Brooklyn Law's $116,674. Cost of living has grown faster than tuition — 39% for room and board since 2019 against 15% for tuition — but from a much lower base. The trade-offs are climate and market size: Laramie winters are long and cold, the local legal market is small, and students targeting large-market practice travel for interviews and summer positions. The university operates on-campus housing, though the off-campus allowance is lower, which rewards students who rent.

Student body

Metric Value
Total J.D. enrollment 230
Entering class 74
Women 47.4%
Men 49.6%
Non-binary / other 3.0%
Full-time faculty 25 (plus 12 non-full-time, 3 librarians)

With 230 J.D. students and a 74-person entering class, Wyoming is among the smallest law schools in the United States — roughly a fifth the size of Brooklyn Law and a third the size of Arkansas — which produces a genuinely close-knit community, near-universal faculty familiarity and a strong alumni network in a single state. The student body is 47.4% women, 49.6% men and 3.0% non-binary or other, the most gender-balanced cohort in this profile series. No students transferred in during the reporting year and one transferred out. The alumni network is exceptionally prominent in Wyoming and the Mountain West: Alan Simpson, former U.S. Senator; Gerry Spence, the trial lawyer; Dave Freudenthal and Matt Mead, both former Governors of Wyoming; Mike Sullivan, former Governor and Ambassador; Ken Buck, former U.S. Representative; James G. Watt, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior; judges Marilyn Kite, Wade Brorby, Michael R. Murphy, Alan B. Johnson, E. James Burke, James E. Barrett and Terrence L. O'Brien; and William U. Hill, former Chief Justice of the Wyoming Supreme Court. Faculty have included Johanna Bond, now dean of Rutgers Law School.

How Wyoming Compares

Choose Wyoming if

  • You are a Wyoming resident. At $19,244 in annual tuition and fees — ranked #387 of 275 distinct tuition rates nationally — Wyoming is among the cheapest ABA-approved legal educations in the country, and 89% of students receive grants with a median award of $8,000.
  • You want low financial risk on your scholarship. Wyoming's conditional-scholarship loss rate was 4.5% in 2024–25 and 3.8% in 2023–24, among the lowest in this profile series, against Brooklyn Law's 19.2% and American's 41.5%.
  • You want a genuinely small cohort: 230 J.D. students, a 74-person entering class, a 9.2:1 ratio ranked #39 nationally, and a 25-member full-time faculty.
  • You are aiming at a federal judicial clerkship. Wyoming's 5.0% federal clerkship rate ranks #33 nationally — stronger than Brooklyn Law (#103) and Albany Law (#92), and remarkable for a school of this size.
  • You intend to practise in Wyoming or the Mountain West. Wyoming is the only law school in the state, and its alumni hold the governorship, the state Supreme Court, the federal bench and the state's leading firms.
  • You want energy, natural-resources, water or public-lands law: the joint J.D./M.A. in Environment and Natural Resources and the Wyoming Law Review give the school a real specialisation, and the state itself is the classroom.
  • You can live off campus or at home: the off-campus allowance of $17,600 is $3,100 below the on-campus figure, and living at home cuts the budget to $12,300.
  • You want an unusually favourable bar-passage differential: Wyoming first-time takers beat the Wyoming state average by +7.0 points in 2025 and have beaten it in every year for which data was retrieved.

Consider alternatives if

  • You are a non-resident. At $38,834 in annual tuition and fees you pay $19,590 more than a resident, and the $8,000 median grant covers only 21% of that price — a cost of attendance of $56,434 against a modeled median salary of $82,929.
  • You want a large-firm or coastal career. A 230-student alumni base in a single state, a modeled median salary of $82,929 and a Wyoming-anchored network do not reach the national or BigLaw market.
  • You want a large cohort and a broad curriculum. Wyoming's 230 J.D. students and 25 full-time faculty mean a narrower course catalogue and a smaller organisations and competition slate than a school of 500 or more.
  • You need a part-time, evening or online J.D. — Wyoming is full-time only.
  • You want the largest possible scholarship award in absolute dollars. Wyoming's median grant of $8,000 is the smallest in this profile series; the low price, not the award size, is what makes the school affordable.
  • You are sensitive to climate or want an urban setting: Laramie sits at 7,165 feet with long, cold winters, and the local legal market is small.
  • You need confirmed debt and LRAP figures before committing. Neither average indebtedness, the borrowing rate nor LRAP terms were retrievable for this profile.

The TLS Verdict

The University of Wyoming College of Law is the purest value proposition in this profile series, and the numbers support it more strongly than the ranking does. A resident pays $19,244 in annual tuition and fees — the second-lowest in this series and ranked #387 of 275 distinct national rates — while 89% of students receive grants, the conditional-scholarship loss rate is under 5%, the off-campus living allowance is $3,100 below the on-campus figure, and an independent model puts the three-year net cost at $138,441. In return, students get a 74-person entering class, a 9.2:1 student-to-faculty ratio ranked #39 nationally, a 25-member full-time faculty, an 85.9% bar-required employment rate, a 90.6% overall employment rate, an 83.0% first-time bar pass rate that beat the jurisdictional average by 7.0 points, a modeled median salary of $82,929 that is perfectly serviceable against that cost, and — most remarkably — a 5.0% federal clerkship rate ranked #33 nationally, better than several far more expensive and higher-ranked schools in this series. The school is the only law school in Wyoming, which gives its alumni an unusually tight grip on the state's bench, bar, government and energy and natural-resources practice. The counterweights are scale and reach: a 230-student body and a 25-member faculty mean a narrower curriculum and a smaller network; the applicant pool of 483 is the smallest in this series, so selectivity statistics move on small numbers; a modeled median salary of $82,929 caps the financial upside; and a non-resident pays $38,834 in tuition and fees with a median grant covering only a fifth of it, which makes residency the decisive variable. The critical missing data is debt: average indebtedness, the borrowing rate and LRAP terms were not retrievable, and at this price point those figures should be good, but they should be confirmed rather than assumed. For a Wyoming resident who wants to practise in the state, or for a Mountain West applicant aiming at a federal clerkship or energy and natural-resources law, Wyoming is an outstanding and underrated choice. For a non-resident paying full price, or for anyone targeting a national firm, the same money buys a broader platform elsewhere.

Frequently Asked Questions

How hard is it to get into Wyoming Law?

Moderately selective and increasingly so: for Fall 2025, Wyoming accepted 35.82% of applicants (173 offers from 483 completed applications), with 74 enrolling — a 41.04% yield on offers. In 2019 the acceptance rate was 54.9%.

What LSAT score is competitive for Wyoming Law?

The median LSAT for the Fall 2025 entering class was 156, with a middle-50% range of 153 to 160. Scores at or above 156 are competitive, and because the 25th percentile is 153 the school admits a real band of applicants below its median.

What GPA do Wyoming Law applicants typically have?

The median undergraduate GPA for the Fall 2025 entering class was 3.55, with a middle-50% range of 3.32 to 3.80.

Does Wyoming Law give scholarships?

Yes, broadly: per the 2025 ABA 509 report, 203 students (89%) received grants, with a median grant of $8,000, a 25th percentile of $6,000 and a 75th percentile of $13,460. The awards are small in absolute terms, but the underlying resident price of $19,244 is low enough that the net cost remains among the lowest in the country.

Does Wyoming Law offer conditional scholarships?

Yes, but the loss rate is very low: 67 offered with 3 reduced or eliminated in 2024–25 (4.5%), 80 offered with 3 reduced in 2023–24 (3.8%), and 61 offered with 7 reduced in 2022–23 (11.5%). Applicants should still verify the retention terms in their own award letter.

What is Wyoming Law's bar passage rate?

First-time takers in 2025 passed at 83.0% (49 of 59), 7.0 points above the 76.0% average for the jurisdictions where they sat. ILRG's tabulation of the 2024 administrations gives 75.6%, 2.9 points above Wyoming's 72.7% statewide rate, ranked #128 nationally. In 2019 the school's first-time rate was 80.4%, 7.7 points above the state average.

How many Wyoming Law graduates get jobs?

The Class of 2025 comprised 64 graduates, of whom 58 (90.6%) were employed ten months after graduation and 55 (85.9%) held jobs requiring bar admission, with a modeled median salary of $82,929 for covered job categories. ILRG's tabulation of the prior cohort gives 85.0% full-time long-term bar-required employment (ranked #71 nationally), 92.5% overall employment at ten months, and a 5.0% federal clerkship rate ranked #33 nationally.

What does Wyoming Law cost?

Tuition is $576 per credit for residents and $1,229 per credit for non-residents, plus $1,964 in annual fees — $19,244 resident and $38,834 non-resident at 30 credits per year. With the school's living-expense allowances, the estimated cost of attendance is $36,844 resident and $56,434 non-resident living off campus, $39,944 and $59,534 on campus, and $31,544 and $51,134 living at home.

Is the off-campus living allowance higher or lower than on campus?

Lower. The 2025 509 report lists $17,600 off campus against $20,700 on campus, so renting off campus saves $3,100 a year, and living at home reduces the allowance to $12,300.

Is there an application fee?

Yes, $50. The 2025 ABA 509 report lists the application and financial-aid deadlines as blank, so the operative dates should be confirmed with the admissions office.

Is there a deadline for submitting my transcript?

Yes. Wyoming's ABA disclosures state that for students matriculating in the fall, each enrolled student's official transcript must be on file before October 15, and a student will be administratively withdrawn from classes if the official transcript is not received by that date.

Does Wyoming Law offer a part-time J.D.?

No. The J.D. is a full-time, three-year programme with no part-time or evening division; the Fall 2025 entering class of 74 was entirely full-time.

Does Wyoming Law offer joint degrees?

Yes. Wyoming offers a joint J.D./M.A. in Environment and Natural Resources, a joint J.D./M.P.A., and a joint J.D./M.B.A.

What is Wyoming Law best known for?

Its exceptionally low resident tuition and repeated recognition as a best value in legal education, its energy, natural resources and environmental law focus, its small cohort and 9.2:1 student-to-faculty ratio, and its 5.0% federal clerkship rate — ranked #33 nationally — together with its status as the only law school in Wyoming.

Contact and Key Links

University of Wyoming College of Law
1000 E. University Ave., Dept. 3035
Laramie, WY 82070

Admissions Phone: (307) 766-6416

Official links

TLS Forum Links

Sources

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