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Law School Rules

Appendix D. Coif Eligibility Rules

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Eligibility for the Order of the Coif

Election to the Order of the Coif is based upon a student's final grade point average. However, the National Executive Committee has interpreted the Coif Constitution to require that, to be eligible, students must have at least 75% of their work in graded courses.

  1. Our Chapter has interpreted this to mean that a graduate must have at least 68 graded credits. (68 in 75% of 90 credits.) If a student earns more than 90 credits they still need only 68 graded credits.
  2. A graded credit is one earned in a course graded by number OR on the A-F scale. Legal Writing is, therefore, treated as a graded credit, for example.
  3. Transfer students may be eligible for election, so long as they have completed the equivalent of four semesters of work at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Only grades earned at the University of Wisconsin will be used in order to determine eligibility and ranking. In order to be eligible, 75% of the students work at the University of Wisconsin Law School must be graded. This means that a transfer student must have at least 45 Wisconsin graded credits in order to be eligible.

In some circumstances, factors other than the computed academic average might be taken into account in making a selection. For example, in choosing between students whose numerical averages are extremely close, the student with more numerical grades might be selected, even if their average was slightly lower.