Last updated: September 28, 2026

Wayne State University Law School

Wayne State University Law School is a public law school in Detroit, Michigan, that enrolled a first-year class of 129 students (120 full-time, 9 part-time) in Fall 2025 from 1,290 completed applications, with a median LSAT of 164 and a median undergraduate GPA of 3.89. It is ranked #62 (tie) in the 2026 U.S. News rankings and #25 among part-time programs, and 95.2% of its Class of 2025 graduates secured full-time, long-term positions requiring bar passage or offering a J.D. advantage — a historic high for the school, up from 94.9% the year before. The central decision issue for admitted applicants is that Wayne Law pairs the lowest law tuition in Michigan with an unusually large scholarship budget (322 grant recipients, a median grant of $34,636, no conditional awards), a nationally ranked part-time division, and average graduate indebtedness of $62,462 — against a placement network rooted almost entirely in metro Detroit.

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Wayne Law at a Glance

Category	Latest information
Founded	1927 (centennial in 2027)
Type	Public
ABA approval or accreditation	ABA approved (Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar); approved since 1937
Location	Detroit, Michigan (471 W. Palmer Ave, Midtown)
Latest U.S. News rank	#62 tie (2026 edition); #25 among part-time programs
Latest completed applications	1,290 (Fall 2025, 2025 509 report)
Latest acceptance rate	24.81% (Fall 2025)
Latest LSAT median	164 (Fall 2025 full-time)
Latest GPA median	3.89 (Fall 2025)
Latest entering class	129 (Fall 2025: 120 full-time, 9 part-time)
Current tuition	$1,347.17 per credit hour resident / $1,477.90 per credit hour non-resident (2026–27)
Current estimated cost of attendance	$57,810 resident living with a parent; $68,698 resident living away from home; $61,734 and $72,622 for non-residents (2026–27, 15-credit full-time)
Latest first-time bar passage	86.1% (U.S. News profile); 73.8% for 2025 first-time takers (LawHub) — figures conflict, see bar passage section
Latest bar-required employment	95.2% of the Class of 2025 in full-time, long-term bar-passage or J.D.-advantage positions (school-reported); 77.1% in bar-required positions (third-party tabulation)
Current dean	Lance Gable (Acting Dean since October 2025)

The admissions figures are drawn from Wayne Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (1,290 completed applications, 320 offers, a 24.81% acceptance rate, 129 students in the first-year class and 394 total J.D. students). Tuition and cost data are from the law school's cost and financial aid page and the university's Financial Aid office, which publish an itemized 2026–27 budget. Lance Gable, a longtime member of the Wayne Law faculty and a former associate dean, was appointed Acting Dean in October 2025 after Dean Richard Bierschbach was selected as Interim President of Wayne State University; Bierschbach was expected to return to the law school ahead of its centennial in 2027.

Introduction

Wayne State University Law School, founded in 1927 and approved by the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar since 1937, is the law school of Wayne State University, a public research university located in the heart of Detroit. It sits at 471 W. Palmer Avenue in Midtown, surrounded by the university's medical and research facilities and within a short drive of the city's federal and state courthouses.

Wayne's identity rests on three pillars: the lowest tuition among Michigan's law schools paired with unusually deep scholarship funding and modest graduate debt; a genuine part-time division ranked #25 nationally, which makes the school accessible to working applicants and public-sector employees; and an anchor-institution role in Detroit's legal community, expressed through seven client clinics, the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights and the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy. Its graduates cluster in Detroit and southeast Michigan, with a smaller stream into Chicago and the coasts.

Rankings and Reputation

Wayne Law is ranked #62 (tie) in the 2026 U.S. News & World Report law school rankings, out of 194 ranked schools, and #25 out of 78 among part-time programs. The 2026 result is one of three identical placements that drew comment in the admissions press: Nebraska, Wayne State and Richmond each climbed nine spots this cycle to land at #62 — three schools with entirely different student bodies, faculties and employment outcomes sharing one identical rank change, which is itself the clearest available argument against reading this band of the rankings as evidence of quality differences. Wayne's actual reputational claims are cost and value related: the school states it is ranked #1 in Michigan, holds "the lowest tuition of any law school in Michigan," and has been named a Best Value Law School by The National Jurist and preLaw magazine for ten consecutive years, with a top-25 national placement for lowest debt-to-income ratio.

Overall ranking

U.S. News edition	Wayne State rank
2026	62 (tie); #25 part-time
2025	71 (tie)

The 2024 and 2023 ranks were not independently confirmed in the sources reviewed. Applicants should treat movement of this magnitude as substantially a function of U.S. News's shifting weighting of employment and bar-outcome factors rather than evidence of a change in the school's practical career outcomes.

Note: the U.S. News school profile page returned an unrelated institution's data when retrieved directly for this profile. The ranking, tuition and outcome figures attributed to U.S. News above therefore rest on that page's search-result and third-party-tabulation data rather than a clean profile fetch, and should be verified against the live profile before being relied on.

Specialty rankings

The school cites Environmental Law and Clinical Training as areas of particular strength, and the part-time program's #25 national ranking is its strongest single U.S. News placement. Wayne State did not appear among the top 50 schools in the 2026–27 U.S. News Environmental Law rankings — a list of 189 programs — so the environmental law claim should be read as a programmatic strength rather than a current ranked position. Specific 2026 specialty rank numbers were not confirmed in the sources reviewed and are therefore not listed here.

Admissions: What It Takes to Get In

Entering class (Fall 2025)

Admissions metric	Fall 2025
Completed applications	1,290
Offers of admission	320
Acceptance rate	24.81%
Enrollees from applicant pool	129
Total in first-year class	129 (120 full-time, 9 part-time)
Yield (enrollees / offers)	40.3%

The school reports that applications increased by more than 14% in the current cycle and describes the incoming class as "one of the strongest in school history," with a median LSAT of 164 and a median GPA of 3.89 — the same medians shown in the 2025 ABA 509 report. Wayne operates both a full-time and a part-time division, a structure shared by relatively few top-75 schools.

LSAT and GPA

Statistic	25th percentile	Median	75th percentile
LSAT (full-time)	157	164	166
Undergraduate GPA (full-time)	3.56	3.89	3.95

The 2025 ABA 509 report reports the same undergraduate percentiles for the part-time cohort (3.56 / 3.89 / 3.95) but does not report part-time LSAT percentiles. The unusually narrow LSAT band (157 to 166) paired with a very high GPA median (3.89) is the signature of a school that admits a tightly clustered pool and weighs undergraduate performance heavily alongside the test.

Note: whether Wayne Law accepts the GRE or JD-Next in addition to the LSAT was not confirmed in the sources reviewed. The university's graduate bulletin states that applicants must take the LSAT no later than June of the year of application, which suggests the LSAT is the primary required test; confirm with the admissions office.

Interpreting the numbers

Wayne's trajectory on admissions metrics is the most striking fact about the school's recent history. Comparing the current cycle with 2019:

Metric	2025 cycle	2019 cycle
Acceptance rate	24.8%	48.1%
Median LSAT	164	158
LSAT 25th–75th	157–166	155–161
Median GPA	3.89	3.50
GPA 25th–75th	3.56–3.95	3.26–3.69
First-time bar passage	86.1%	77.8%
Advantage over Michigan's rate	+13.1 points	+2.7 points

Acceptance selectivity has roughly halved and both medians have risen sharply in six years, while bar performance against the state average improved from a modest +2.7 points to +13.1. The 40% yield is high for a public school in this band, which reflects the strength of the in-state price proposition. Out-of-state applicants should note that the price advantage narrows considerably at the non-resident rate. No LSAT or GPA guarantees admission.

Application timing

There is no application fee — the 2025 ABA 509 report lists $0. Applications open October 1 and close August 1, a later final deadline than most peer schools and a reflection of the school's rolling, part-time-friendly model; the priority scholarship deadline is March 15, and the financial aid deadline is also March 15. Wayne Law does not publish a binding early-decision program in the sources reviewed. Because the scholarship budget is large but finite, applicants seeking the strongest packages are advised to apply by the March priority deadline rather than relying on the August closing date.

Cost, Scholarships, and Debt

Tuition

For the 2026–27 academic year, tuition is $1,347.17 per credit hour for Michigan residents and $1,477.90 per credit hour for non-residents, plus a registration fee of $402.91 per semester, a student service fee of $69.63 per credit hour and a course materials fee of $95 per course. At a full-time load of 15 credit hours per semester, that is approximately $40,415 in resident tuition and $44,337 in non-resident tuition, with fees bringing the university's own estimate to $43,308 resident and $47,232 non-resident. Resident tuition is available to Michigan residents and to students who qualify for the university's Good Neighbor Program, which extends resident rates to residents of Ontario, Canada and to four contiguous Ohio counties (Fulton, Lucas, Ottawa and Williams).

Year / category	Amount
2025–26 full-time, resident (509 report)	$38,861 + $3,733 fees
2025–26 full-time, non-resident (509 report)	$42,632 + $3,733 fees
2025–26 part-time, resident (509 report)	$20,726 + $2,416 fees
2025–26 part-time, non-resident (509 report)	$22,737 + $2,416 fees
2026–27 per credit hour, resident	$1,347.17
2026–27 per credit hour, non-resident	$1,477.90
2026–27 registration fee, per semester	$402.91
2026–27 student service fee, per credit hour	$69.63

Third-party tabulations list full-time tuition of $38,861 in-state and $42,632 out-of-state and part-time tuition of $23,142 in-state and $25,153 out-of-state for the most recently reported cycle, and note a room-and-board estimate of $25,132 versus $14,148 in 2019 — a reminder that the price advantage sits on the tuition line, not in the living budget.

Cost of attendance

Expense	Resident, with parent	Resident, away from home	Non-resident, away from home
Tuition and fees (15 credits)	$43,308	$43,308	$47,232
Books, supplies, materials and equipment	$2,568	$2,568	$2,568
Estimated loan fee	$204	$204	$204
Housing and food	$5,574	$15,624	$15,624
Personal and miscellaneous	$2,286	$3,124	$3,124
Transportation (includes campus parking)	$3,870	$3,870	$3,870
Total estimated costs	$57,810	$68,698	$72,622

Third-year students should also budget $776 in bar exam fees, an allowance the university adds in the final year of study. The published budget uses the average credit load for each type of student, is replaced with actual charges once enrollment is confirmed, and is not adjusted after the university's census date.

Financial aid

Per the 2025 Standard 509 report, 322 students received grants, with a median grant of $34,636, a 25th percentile of $25,000 and a 75th percentile of $38,547. Those are large awards: the median grant covers roughly 89% of resident full-time tuition, and the 25th percentile alone covers nearly two-thirds. Wayne Law states that it invests more than $8 million in scholarships annually and has been recognized as a Best Value Law School for ten straight years. Critically, the school confirms in its ABA disclosures that it "does not award scholarships that may be reduced or eliminated based on law school academic performance other than failure to maintain good academic standing" — that is, no conditional scholarships.

One mechanical caution the school states explicitly: federal regulations and university policy require the financial aid office to count scholarships as a financial resource in determining need, so a scholarship award may reduce loan eligibility.

Debt perspective

Wayne Law's cost profile is its central selling point, and the debt data confirm it. U.S. News reports average indebtedness of $62,462 for 2025 J.D. graduates who incurred law school debt, with 58.7% of graduates borrowing — roughly half the national law-school average and one of the lowest figures of any school in the top 100. A Michigan resident living away from home faces an estimated full-time cost of $68,698 for 2026–27 and a resident living with family $57,810, so a student receiving the median grant of $34,636 and living at home can finance a year for roughly $23,000. The school states it is ranked in the top 25 nationally for lowest debt-to-income ratio by U.S. News.

Note: whether Wayne Law offers a loan repayment assistance program for 2025 J.D. graduates was not confirmed in the sources reviewed. Applicants considering public-interest or government work should ask the financial aid office directly and, if no LRAP exists, plan around federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness. The university's financial aid office publishes general federal loan-repayment guidance, but that is not a school LRAP.

Employment Outcomes

Employment (Class of 2025)

Wayne Law reports that its Class of 2025 achieved a 95.2% employment rate in full-time, long-term positions requiring bar passage or offering a J.D. advantage, according to data collected under ABA protocols — a historic high for the school, up from 94.9% for the Class of 2024.

Employment metric	Class of 2025
Full-time, long-term bar-passage or J.D.-advantage employment (school-reported)	95.2% (historic high)
Prior year (Class of 2024)	94.9%
Long-term, full-time legal jobs (third-party tabulation, 124 graduates)	84.7%
Any long-term job (third-party tabulation)	98.4%
Any full-time job (third-party tabulation)	96.8%
Overall employment at 10 months (third-party tabulation)	93.6% (#82 nationally)
Employed ten months after graduation (another third-party tabulation)	98.39%
Bar-required employment (third-party tabulation)	#137 nationally (77.1%)
Federal clerkships	0.7% (#133 nationally)
BigLaw (firms of 501+ attorneys)	4.8% of graduates

The school attributes the gains to an expanded employer network extending into new markets, individualized career advising, and changes designed to help graduates compete in the direct-portal application market — the hiring channel that has increasingly replaced traditional on-campus recruiting.

What these numbers mean

The headline figures describe different things and should not be read as contradictory. The school's 95.2% is the ABA-standard measure of full-time, long-term positions that require bar passage or offer a J.D. advantage — the outcome most applicants care about. The 84.7% long-term, full-time legal jobs figure is a stricter measure that excludes J.D.-advantage positions and counts only roles classified as legal. The 98.4% "any long-term job" figure includes non-legal employment. Reading them together: Wayne Law graduates face very little risk of long-term unemployment, a modest risk of landing in a non-legal job, and a real but geographically bounded market for legal practice — with 4.8% of the class entering firms of 501 or more attorneys, the BigLaw pipeline is thin. The bar-required employment ranking of #137 nationally (77.1%) confirms that a meaningful share of the class lands in J.D.-advantage roles, which is consistent with metro Detroit's large corporate compliance, government and in-house legal-employer base.

One caveat on comparability: the school's own Class of 2025 ABA Employment Summary is posted on its consumer-information page, but the PDF was not machine-readable when retrieved for this profile, so the firm-size distribution, clerkship counts and employment-location table are not reproduced here. Applicants should consult that summary for those line items.

Bar passage

Bar statistic	Most recent reported figures
First-time bar passage rate (U.S. News profile)	86.1%
Average first-time passage among the states where graduates sat (U.S. News)	72.9%
Advantage over the state average	+13.1 points (#69 nationally)
Ultimate bar passage (2-year average, U.S. News)	90.9%
Primary bar state	Michigan
2025 first-time takers (third-party tabulation)	73.8%
Michigan July 2024 bar exam	86.05% first-time passage, cited by the school
Michigan February 2026 bar exam	88% for Wayne first-time takers vs. 61% statewide
Earlier cycle highlighted by the school	87% passage, 10 points above the statewide average

Bar passage is the least settled figure in this profile. U.S. News reports 86.1% first-time passage against a 72.9% state average, while a third-party tabulation shows 73.8% for the 2025 cohort — a gap of more than twelve points, most likely reflecting different cohorts and methodologies rather than a real swing. What is consistent across sources is Wayne Law's performance on individual Michigan administrations: 88% of its first-time takers passed the February 2026 Michigan bar against 61% statewide, and the school cites an 86.05% July 2024 rate and an 87% rate that beat the statewide average by ten points. The school credits a bar preparation program it built with the outside vendor JD Advising, and it publishes six years of ultimate bar passage reports (2021 through 2026) through its ABA disclosures page. Applicants should consult the school's own ultimate bar passage report rather than relying on any single headline figure.

Where graduates go

Wayne Law's placement is overwhelmingly regional. The school describes itself as located "in the heart of Detroit" and as a leading supplier of legal talent to the metro area, with an employer network it has recently expanded into new markets. Third-party salary data for private-practice associates show a median of $135,000 in the private sector against a public-sector median of $55,000 — a spread that reflects both the presence of national-firm offices in Detroit and the large public-interest, government and nonprofit sector that draws Wayne graduates. Specific state-by-state placement counts for the Class of 2025 were not published in machine-readable form in the sources reviewed.

Academics and Programs

The J.D. is offered in both full-time and part-time divisions, and the part-time program is ranked #25 nationally in the 2026 U.S. News edition — a distinguishing feature for a school at this rank and a meaningful option for working students in southeast Michigan. In addition to the J.D., the school offers an LL.M. program, a Master of Studies in Law for non-lawyer professionals, and undergraduate offerings including a Bachelor of Arts in Law and a minor in law. Faculty totals 101 members — 53 full-time and 48 non-full-time, the latter drawn heavily from Detroit's bench and bar — with a student-to-faculty ratio of 7.4:1 (tied #16 lowest nationally), a faculty that is 51.5% female and 22.8% racial or ethnic minority.

Curriculum and special strengths

Wayne's curriculum emphasizes the historical, theoretical and constitutional foundations of law alongside hands-on training, and the school markets a "courtroom to boardroom" range spanning litigation, business and public law. The school offers six dual-degree programs in conjunction with other Wayne State schools, including a joint J.D./M.B.A. with the Mike Ilitch School of Business in which students complete both degrees concurrently. Two research centers define its national profile. The Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights, named for the late Sixth Circuit judge and Detroit civil-rights figure, anchors the school's civil-rights teaching and advocacy work. The Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy marked its tenth anniversary with a program featuring U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin and former U.S. Representative John Katko, and released a People-Centered Oversight report the school describes as a framework now shaping oversight practice. The school publishes three student-edited journals, including the Wayne Law Review.

Clinics and experiential learning

Clinical work is one of Wayne Law's most heavily marketed academic features, and the school frames it as the bridge between legal theory and practice: clinics are offered for credit, directed by faculty and experienced practitioners, and serve residents of the metro Detroit community while giving students hands-on responsibility for actual cases. The school's clinics page states that Wayne "offers seven client clinics" and names the following:

Appeal and Post-Conviction Advocacy Clinic
Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic
Business and Community Law Clinic
Community Advocacy Clinic
Immigration Appellate Advocacy Clinic
Legal Advocacy for People with Cancer Clinic

Note: the page's stated count (seven) does not match the six clinics it names, and third-party listings reference additional clinics such as a disability law clinic; the discrepancy was not resolved in the sources reviewed. Clinics are not offered every semester. Contact: Wayne Law Clinic Program, (313) 577-4015, [email protected].

Beyond clinics, students gain practice experience through Mock Trial and Moot Court competition teams, externships and co-curricular programs, and more than 30 student organizations sponsor speakers, host events and engage in public service.

Student Life and Location

Living in Detroit

Wayne Law sits at 471 W. Palmer Avenue on Wayne State University's campus in Midtown Detroit, a district that has undergone substantial reinvestment and now mixes the university's medical and research facilities with museums, restaurants, housing and the city's cultural institutions. The location puts students within a short drive of Detroit's federal and state courthouses, the downtown corporate headquarters of the automakers, and the region's major firms — a genuine advantage for part-time students and for anyone building a practice network while enrolled.

The cost of living is materially below coastal markets, and the university's own estimates make that concrete: for 2026–27 it budgets $15,624 for housing and food for a student living away from home, or $5,574 for a student living with family. Detroit offers a major metropolitan environment with professional sports, an international airport and access to the Great Lakes, with Ann Arbor and the rest of southeast Michigan within an hour. The trade-off relative to coastal schools is market size and reach: Detroit is a strong regional market with a large corporate and government legal sector but fewer national-firm entry points than New York or Chicago, and students targeting those markets must build those networks themselves. Winters are long and cold.

Student body

With roughly 394 J.D. students and a first-year class of 129, Wayne Law is a mid-sized public law school with a substantial part-time cohort — 9 of the 129 entering students are part-time — enrolled in a program ranked #25 nationally. The student body is 54.8% women, 44.6% men and 0.5% non-binary or other, and is drawn predominantly from Michigan and the surrounding region, including the Ontario and Ohio counties covered by the Good Neighbor Program. More than 30 organizations, three journals and the school's competition teams give it a fuller range of co-curricular activity than its size might suggest. The school is currently in a period of leadership transition while its sitting dean serves as the university's interim president, and it will mark its centennial in 2027. There is no evening-only division distinct from the part-time program, which students may complete on a flexible schedule.

How Wayne Law Compares

Choose Wayne Law if

You are a Michigan resident — or qualify for the Good Neighbor Program through Ontario or four Ohio counties — and want the lowest law tuition in Michigan with heavy scholarship aid: 322 grant recipients, a median grant of $34,636, no conditional scholarships, and average graduate indebtedness of $62,462.
You want a genuine part-time option. The division is ranked #25 nationally, admissions accept applications from October 1 through August 1, and the March 15 priority scholarship deadline is built for working applicants.
You intend to practice in Detroit or southeast Michigan, where the school is a dominant supplier of legal talent and the alumni network is deepest.
You want clinical breadth and public-interest exposure — client clinics covering post-conviction advocacy, asylum and immigration, community advocacy, business law and legal advocacy for cancer patients, plus the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights and the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy.

Consider alternatives if

You are paying the non-resident rate without a plan to stay in Michigan; the price advantage narrows substantially and is not matched by national reach.
You are targeting large-firm "BigLaw" in a major market or a federal clerkship pipeline — only 4.8% of the Class of 2025 entered firms of 501 or more attorneys, and the federal clerkship rate is 0.7%.
You want a settled leadership picture; the school is under an acting dean while its dean serves as interim university president.
You need transparent comparison data before deciding: the Class of 2025 ABA Employment Summary was not machine-readable, the school publishes no NALP salary tables, and the two most widely cited first-time bar passage figures (86.1% and 73.8%) conflict.

The TLS Verdict

Wayne Law is one of the strongest value propositions among public law schools, and its outcomes are improving on nearly every published measure. The verified case for it is price, aid and employment: the lowest law tuition in Michigan at $1,347.17 per credit hour for residents in 2026–27, an estimated full-time cost of $57,810 for a resident living with family and $68,698 living away; 322 grant recipients with a median grant of $34,636 and a 25th percentile of $25,000; no conditional scholarships; more than $8 million in annual scholarship funding; average indebtedness of $62,462 with 58.7% of graduates borrowing; a #62 (tie) U.S. News rank with a #25 part-time program and a top-25 national placement for lowest debt-to-income; and a 95.2% Class of 2025 employment rate in full-time, long-term bar-passage or J.D.-advantage positions — a historic high, up from 94.9% the year before, with 98.4% of graduates in some long-term job. Selectivity has improved dramatically alongside outcomes: the acceptance rate fell from 48.1% to 24.8% and the median LSAT rose from 158 to 164 since 2019.

The case against it is geography, leadership turnover and data opacity. Placement is concentrated in metro Detroit; bar-required employment ranks #137 nationally at 77.1% and only 4.8% of the class enters firms of 501 or more attorneys; the two headline first-time bar passage figures disagree by more than twelve points; the Class of 2025 ABA Employment Summary and NALP salary tables are not machine-readable or not published; no LRAP was confirmed; and the school is led by an acting dean. For a Michigander, or a Good Neighbor Program qualifier, who wants a low-debt J.D. and intends to practice in Detroit, Wayne Law is close to a best-case outcome per dollar. For an applicant paying non-resident tuition to chase a national BigLaw career, the arithmetic is much weaker.

Frequently Asked Questions

How hard is it to get into Wayne Law?

Selective: for Fall 2025, Wayne received 1,290 completed applications, made 320 offers (a 24.81% acceptance rate — 24.8%, ranking #56 nationally for selectivity) and enrolled 129 students, a yield of about 40%. Applications increased by more than 14% in the current cycle.

What LSAT score is competitive for Wayne Law?

The median LSAT for the Fall 2025 entering class was 164, with a middle-50% range of 157 to 166. Scores at or above 164 are competitive, and the narrow band means Wayne admits a tightly clustered pool.

What GPA do Wayne Law applicants typically have?

The median undergraduate GPA was 3.89 for the Fall 2025 entering class, with a middle-50% range of 3.56 to 3.95 — a high GPA band relative to the school's LSAT range, and a sharp rise from a 3.50 median in 2019.

Does Wayne Law give scholarships?

Yes, heavily and unconditionally. Per the 2025 ABA 509 report, 322 students received grants, with a median grant of $34,636, a 25th percentile of $25,000 and a 75th percentile of $38,547. The school invests more than $8 million annually and awards no scholarships that can be reduced or eliminated for academic performance beyond failing to maintain good academic standing.

What is Wayne Law's bar passage rate?

Reported figures conflict: U.S. News shows 86.1% first-time passage against a 72.9% state average with a 90.9% two-year ultimate rate, while a third-party tabulation shows 73.8% for the 2025 cohort. On individual Michigan administrations the school has performed strongly — 88% of its first-time takers passed the February 2026 Michigan bar versus 61% statewide, and it cites an 86.05% July 2024 rate. Consult the school's own ultimate bar passage report.

Is Wayne Law good for BigLaw?

Not primarily. Only 4.8% of the Class of 2025 entered firms of 501 or more attorneys and the federal clerkship rate is 0.7%. Wayne's placements concentrate in metro Detroit across firms of all sizes, government, corporate and public-interest employers; third-party salary data show a private-sector median of $135,000 against a public-sector median of $55,000.

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

Yes. The part-time division enrolled 9 of the 129 entering students in Fall 2025 and is ranked #25 nationally in the 2026 U.S. News edition. It is one of the school's distinctive features, along with an August 1 application deadline and a March 15 priority scholarship deadline that accommodate working applicants.

What is Wayne Law best known for?

Value and Detroit: the lowest law tuition in Michigan with ten consecutive Best Value Law School recognitions, a top-25 debt-to-income ranking, a nationally ranked part-time program, seven client clinics, the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights and the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy, and a 95.2% Class of 2025 employment rate in bar-passage or J.D.-advantage roles.

How much does Wayne Law cost?

For 2026–27, tuition is $1,347.17 per credit hour for residents and $1,477.90 for non-residents, plus a $402.91 registration fee per semester, a $69.63 per-credit-hour student service fee and a $95 per-course materials fee. The university estimates full-time costs of $57,810 for a resident living with family and $68,698 living away from home, or $61,734 and $72,622 for non-residents; third-year students should add $776 in bar exam fees. Average indebtedness for 2025 graduates who borrowed was $62,462.

Contact and Key Links

Wayne State University Law School
471 W. Palmer Ave
Detroit, MI 48202

Main Phone: 313-577-3933

Clinic Program: 313-577-4015, [email protected]

Admissions Contact: The contact directory returned by the school lists individual staff and faculty phone numbers but no general admissions phone number or email; current admissions contacts are listed at law.wayne.edu/admissions.

Official links

TLS Forum Links

Sources

Wayne Law

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