After accepting your offer of admission and paying your complete seat deposit, please review the following information:
Transferring in the units from your first year
Up to 31 units of credit can be transferred from the ABA accredited law school you attended prior to admittance to UC Davis. This number is equivalent to the number of units UC Davis students have earned in substantive law courses upon completion of their first year of study. The Law Registrar’s Office will review the transcripts and course descriptions of each incoming transfer student and determine the number of credits which will be transferred toward each student’s degree at UC Davis School of Law.
The UC Davis Law first-year curriculum is prescribed and provides the essential framework for subsequent legal study. These courses include Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law I, Contracts, Criminal Law, Lawyering Process, Legal Research and Writing I and II, Property and Torts. Students transferring in who have not taken a first-year course in the subjects mentioned above are required to enroll and complete these courses within the first year of studies at King Hall (second year of law school). These courses are required for graduation, and are considered prerequisites for most of the upper division courses here at King Hall.
Course Selection and Registration
Before selecting courses it is important to review all degree requirements. Your course schedule each term should include a balance of different types of courses. It is common to select two bar courses which cover subject matter tested on the bar exam, a professional skills course, a seminar course or course which requires a paper rather than an exam, and perhaps a co-curricular activity (journals, competitions, independent research, etc.). An average of 14 to 16 units is common and will help you remain on track to graduate. Students are not permitted to enroll in more than 17 units in a single semester.
Please take time to review the schedule of courses being offered in the upcoming academic year. Descriptions and detailed information about each course can be found on the Course Descriptions area of this website. Each course description will note any prerequisites, graduation requirements and/or indicate if a course is eligible for one of our certificate programs. The courses can be sorted to help identify different types of courses or requirements. Please note, the course descriptions page includes three years’ worth of course information. We may not be offering some of these courses in the upcoming academic year.
Current King Hall students have already registered for fall classes so many classes will be full or “closed” for enrollment. Courses which are full often have a wait list. While the registration system will allow an indefinite number of students to waitlist, not all students will advance from the waitlist into the class. In order for a student to advance into a seat in the class, an enrolled student must decide to drop the course before students from the waitlist will be admitted. Students are admitted in the order they appear on the waitlist. If you choose to place yourself on a waitlist, the course must still fit into your schedule without conflicting with other courses, and the waitlisted courses will be counted in the 17 units allowed in a single semester. It is recommended that you read the information posted on the registration page for more details.
To begin building a schedule of courses, log into Schedule Builder using your kerberos credentials. To see which courses are still open perform a search using Schedule Builder. After reviewing the schedules course offerings, and selecting the courses you’re interested in, build your schedule in Schedule Builder. Be sure to click the “Pre-check registration” button to ensure there are no time conflicts. Once you have built a schedule which works, contact the law school Registrar’s Office by email (registrar@law.ucdavis.edu) with the schedule you wish to enroll in, including courses for which you’d like to be added to the wait list. You’ll receive a verification of enrollment via e-mail. Once the Registrar’s Office has enrolled you for fall courses, you will not be given the option to make schedule changes until the online registration system reopens to all JD students.
When the registration system reopens in late summer, you will have the same access to Schedule Builder as your classmates and will be able to make additions/changes to your schedule on your own. For general registration information including important dates, web registration, finding open courses, wait list information and class information, please see our registration information.
Law Review
We strongly encourage transfer students to apply for Law Review. We hold a write-on specifically for transfer students over the summer. Please contact lawreview@law.ucdavis.edu for more information.
Student ID Cards, Computing Accounts, Lockers
Once admitted to UC Davis, you will be issued a student ID card through the Law Admission Office. ID cards are typically available in the first week of classes. After your computing account has been set-up and you have kerberos log-in credentials, you will be given access to the Law School Intranet. The book lists for all classes and instructions for obtaining a locker, among other important information, are posted on the Intranet. In addition, after you have registered for classes, you may log into Canvas (our online learning system) to see if any of your professor have set-up a course site for assignment postings and announcements. Not all professors will use Canvas.
Honors
UC Davis is a member of the Order of the Coif. In order to be elected to the Order of the Coif, students must be in the top 10% of their graduating class and have 75% of all units as letter graded units. Eligibility for Order of the Coif membership is determined after the sixth semester. UC Davis School of Law does not recognize Cum Laude or Summa Cum Laude.