In planning your course of study remember that after the required first-year program, you must still complete several additional credits of specific coursework for graduation and diploma privilege. At least half of the remaining credits needed for your J.D. degree may consist of electives, giving you the opportunity to create a curricular plan that suits your interests and professional goals. When choosing electives, however, be careful to select a combination of courses that will satisfy the 90, 64, and 60-credit rules for graduation and diploma privilege (See, Section 4.4 of the Student Handbook and Section 4.6 of the Student Handbook).

The vast majority of students who earn J.D. degrees from the Law School also readily meet the requirements for the Wisconsin Diploma Privilege, but it is important to keep in mind that the requirements for the J.D. degree and the diploma privilege are not exactly the same. If you choose to satisfy the diploma privilege (more about Diploma Privilege), be sure to read the requirements carefully.

If you are considering a job outside of Wisconsin you may want to take courses to help you prepare for a bar exam. These courses include basic substantive law courses such as Business Organizations, Conflict of Laws, Evidence, and Constitutional Law. You may also want to work on your exam writing skills, since all bar exams include essay sections in which the examinee must identify a reasoned analysis in a clear, concise, and well organized essay. For more on bar exams, see Other Considerations below.

A broad understanding of the law is essential to practice, and it is important to obtain a legal education that introduces you to the concepts and analytic structure of many areas of law. Clients rarely have legal problems that fit neatly into curricular or career specialties, and lawyers are problem solvers who should be able to identify potential problems that fall outside their specialties. There are also a few subjects with which the public expects every lawyer to have some familiarity.

There are some courses beyond the first-year required courses that most law students take and that many lawyers believe form the core of a second- and third-year curriculum. In putting together your curriculum, you may want to consider including several of these courses. These include Business Organizations I and II, Tax I, Civil Procedure II, Constitutional Law II, and Evidence. In addition, many lawyers and employers feel that an Advanced Legal Writing Course should be part of a basic legal education. 

You may want to develop some specialized knowledge by taking a reasonable concentration of courses in an area (or areas) of particular interest. Advanced courses teach advanced skills and deal with complex problems that aren't taught in survey courses; this can make these classes particularly interesting and intellectually challenging. Advanced courses can also better approximate the types of problems that occur in practice. Pursuing a particular area of law in depth allows you to develop a level of competence and confidence that can make you a strong candidate in the job market.

But, beware of excessive specialization. Make sure that you have the courses and skills that employers expect as part of a basic education. It is impossible to foresee the changing patterns in the job market or future career opportunities and challenges. An overly specialized curricular focus may limit your career flexibility and your ability to find a job in a tight market.

Another way to choose courses is to identify the skills that you need and balance your course selection by including courses based on those needs. The substantive law changes constantly and much of the substance that you learn will change dramatically in your lifetime, but the skills that you learn will last your whole career.

The Law School offers a large variety of clinical courses, simulation courses, and skill courses in which students have the opportunity to learn lawyering skills in live-client or simulation contexts. These courses permit students to complement the theoretical study of law with experience writing in a variety of contexts, interviewing clients, investigating facts, dealing with adverse parties, contacting government agencies, negotiating on behalf of clients and participating in real or hypothetical court proceedings.

Include courses that will develop your intellectual and analytical skills and strengthen your oral and written communications skills.  Legal analysis and reasoning is the most important skill for law graduates to bring from law school, and it is critical to the success of a new lawyer. Employers and graduates also rank oral and written communication as among the most important skills for a lawyer to bring from law school.  You should select courses that ensure that you graduate with strength in these areas.

An excellent approach to choosing courses is to select courses taught by professors you admire – professors whose classes will challenge you and whose approach to teaching excites you – or courses on interesting topics. Courses chosen either because of enthusiasm for the instructor or the subject matter are often the richest experiences one has in law school.

You should also consider diversifying the perspectives from which you see the law by taking at least one or two courses that encourage interdisciplinary thinking about law, including those that offer a global perspective. It is important that students understand the relationship between law and other disciplines and have a perspective on a legal system outside the Anglo-American system that may have solved familiar legal problems in unfamiliar ways.

Students sometimes ask whether they should select courses to help them pass a bar exam. The answer varies by student and depends on a student's ability to learn large amounts of information easily in a very short amount of time.

Feedback from students who have taken a bar exam suggests that it is useful to take at least a few courses with a view towards the exam. Some students find that they have an easier time studying for the bar exam if they have had some exposure to the material during law school. And students who have performed poorly on law school exams may find it beneficial to take the basic courses on subjects that will be on the bar exam.

There are a number of different types of bar exams and each state has its own requirements and its own way of combining the different types of exams. The MPRE (see below) is a stand-alone exam. The others are combined into multi-day exams. View up-to-date information on which subjects are tested on a particular state's bar exam.

Students should also be aware that certain courses may be prerequisites to taking some states' bar examinations. Some jurisdictions may limit the number of clinical credits that can be applied toward a law degree. View more information about these and other bar admission requirements.

MPRE

Most jurisdictions mandate the taking of the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination [MPRE] as a prerequisite for admission to practice law. The MPRE is administered in March, August, and November, and many students take it at the Law School in November or March of their third-year. It is a two hour test with 60 multiple-choice questions. The passing score varies by state.

MBE

The Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) is required by almost all states. It is designed to assess the extent to which an examinee can apply fundamental legal principles and legal reasoning to analyze a given fact pattern. The questions focus on the understanding of the legal principles, not on memorization. Each question presents a fact pattern in the form of a vignette and asks the examinee to select the best answer from among four listed responses. There are 200 questions covering the following subjects:

• Constitutional Law
• Contracts/Sales (UCC)
• Criminal Law/Procedure
• Evidence
• Real Property
• Torts
• Civil Procedure

Essays

All bar exams include an essay section in which the examinee must identify legal issues and present a reasoned analysis in a clear, concise, and well-organized composition. The subjects on the essay sections of bar exams vary by state.

For instance, the subjects for the Illinois bar exam include: Administrative Law, Agency, Commercial Paper, Conflicts of Laws, Corporations, Equity, Family Law, Federal Jurisdiction & Procedure, Illinois Civil Procedure, Partnerships, Personal Property, Sales, Secured Transactions, Suretyship, Trusts & Future Interests, and Wills (Decedents' Estates).

On the other hand, New York's essay section includes topics such as: Agency, Commercial Paper, Conflict of Laws, Corporations, Domestic Relations, Equity, Estate Taxation, Federal Jurisdiction, Future Interests, Insurance (no fault), Mortgages, Partnership, Personal Property, Secured Transactions, Trusts, Wills, and Workers' Compensation.

(Courses such as Business Organizations I & II, Conflict of Laws, Federal Jurisdiction, Tax, Secured Transactions, and Family Law cover many of the required topics.)

MPT

The Multistate Performance Test is the newest addition to the bar exam. It is a "closed universe" practical problem using instructions, factual data, cases, statutes, and other reference material supplied by the examiners. It is 90 minutes long. It is becoming increasingly popular and is administered in 33 jurisdictions the day before the MBE.

(Clinical courses, internships, and work experience are helpful in preparing for the MPT.)

Advanced courses build on prerequisites.

For example, Trial Advocacy requires that you have taken Evidence. It is helpful, but not essential, to take Business Organizations II before Securities Regulation. Also remember that many seminars and some clinicals have prerequisites.

There are only four semesters in the second and third years, so you will not have much margin for error in planning sequences of three or four courses. The course descriptions identify recommended or required sequences where appropriate. When planning your second-year schedule, you should keep your options open by selecting courses that will serve as prerequisites for advanced work.

In general, it is sound planning to take survey courses and courses that introduce sequences in the second year and to defer more specialized courses to the third year.

If you know (or think you know) the kind of work you'd like to do, be sure to select the courses that your employer will expect to see.

For instance, if you are thinking about going to Washington, D.C. and working for a federal agency, a potential employer will look to see if you've taken Administrative Law and some regulatory courses. If you want to do litigation, employers will expect you to have Evidence, Trial Advocacy, and other courses that show you are serious about doing trial work. As noted above, be careful not to pigeon-hole yourself with too many courses in any one area. Thus if you're not interested in criminal law, balance your coursework and clinicals to include civil law. And be careful about how seminars and study abroad programs look to employers -- not all employers look favorably on these experiences.

The pattern of grades you have already earned may be a factor when you select courses. You should imagine what your transcript will look like to a potential employer. A person with low grades at the beginning of law school who seems to be avoiding challenging courses might not get an interview with a firm or agency, whereas another student with the same pattern for the first year might get a clerkship if the course selection reflects a willingness to face challenges, and an acknowledgment that there are skills that need developing.

To be frank, the person with grades in the top 20% of the class may be able to get by with less strategically chosen courses. Many employers are quite aware that most students finish in the middle of the class. They may have gotten one or more low marks themselves. They are most interested in seeing evidence of improvement, diligence, and an ability to perform at a high level, even if that performance is not uniform.

Finally, if you're not at all clear about what you want to do, be sure to select courses that give you a well-rounded education.

Studying abroad is a valuable experience for many law students, but it is not a wise academic (or financial) choice for everyone.  As you plan your academic program, you will need to weigh the benefits and the costs of participating in a study abroad program.

There are many benefits, including a remarkable educational experience, a broadening perspective of the world, insights into another legal system, and a chance to travel.  However, students must plan ahead to avoid unexpected problems. For example, the academic schedules of foreign law schools can interfere with summer employment opportunities, since the schedules can run into July or start in early August. Conflicts also arise with job fairs, on-c class=ampus interviews and other job-related programs, bar review courses, and bar exams. Carefully consider these scheduling issues as you make your decision and as you choose which semester or summer to study abroad.

You also will need to ensure that you have taken, or will be able to take, your required courses and meet your credit requirements. Students who participate in study abroad programs do not always end up with the same amount of credits that they would receive if they stayed in Madison.

The director of the study abroad program can explain how credits earned abroad will transfer to UW credits.  If you decide on a semester abroad, it is wise plan to take a few extra credits before your semester abroad or after you return.

Consider using your course work to help you develop relationships with one or more faculty members who will get to know you and your work, will be able to advise you, and give you meaningful recommendations. 

You can get to know faculty by:

• Being an active participant in and outside of class
• Enrolling in smaller more specialized courses and seminars
• Visiting professors during office hours
• Doing an independent study for a professor
• Serving as a research or project assistant for a faculty member