This guide is intended to help students plan out their J.D. by providing the general rules for semester registration, credit types, course modalities, and credit limits. Students can always speak to their academic advisor about graduation planning. Advising appointments can be made through Starfish.
Login to StarfishGeneral rules for graduation planning
Blended semesters 1 – 4
- First-year courses are auto-enrolled and cannot be changed
- Second-year courses are auto-enrolled, with some changes possible:
- Students may add courses in their second year, but this is generally not advised due to the intensive nature of the 3rd- and 4th-semester course load. Students should speak with their academic advisor about options.
- A few select courses may be dropped in the third semester and retaken in a summer term for cases where students wish to reduce their course load. It is generally not advised to drop 3rd-and 4th-semester auto-enrolled courses unless there is a strong reason to do so, for example, if you are planning for certificate courses. Students should speak with their academic advisor about options and how this will impact their schedule.
Blended Semesters 5+
Beginning in the 5th semester, students are no longer auto-enrolled in courses and will register for classes themselves with some guidelines in mind:
- Students may enroll in a maximum of two Blended courses per semester, one from the Blended A category and one from the Blended B category. Blended A courses have their Capstone in the morning and Blended B in the afternoon, so enrolling in only one from each category is possible. Check the note section on the registration page to see which category the course belongs to.
- After the two blended courses, filling up to the remaining number of desired credits for the semester requires taking online courses, externships, other non-blended courses, or a combination of these. A sample 5th semester schedule (11 credits total for part time) could look like the following:
- Transactions and Settlements (3 credits, Blended A)
- Income Tax (3 credits, Blended B)
- Secured Transactions (3 credits, Online)
- Theories of Conflict (2 credits, Online)
Summer courses and J-Term
- Summer courses can be taken as early as the first year
- Students may not take classes in the J-Term of their first year
Term credit limits
- Students are limited to enrolling in a maximum number of credits for each term.
- Some terms allow for exceeding the term credit limit in some circumstances. See the Term Credit Limit Table below.
Semester credit limit table
| Term | Max Credits | Exceptions |
| Fall/Spring | 15 | Extremely Rare, see rule here. |
| Summer | 8 (12 for a full-time residency) | May petition to take up to 10 credits of courses/externships or 12 credits of a residency |
| J-Term | 3 | None |
* Note that students must complete their JD no earlier than 24 months and no later than 84 months, per rule 1.06.D of the MHSL Catalog.
Tuition brackets
When registering, students should be aware of tuition brackets for the number of credits they enroll in during a term. The following table applies only to the fall and spring semesters. Summer and J-Term does not have a full- or part-time tuition bracket. Students who have questions about tuition should reach out directly to financial aid (finaid@mitchellhamline.edu). More information about tuition may be found on the Financial Aid website.
Tuition bracket table
| Credits | Tuition Bracket | Notes |
| 12-15 | Full-time tuition | |
| 8-11 | Part-time tuition | |
| 1-7 | Pay per credit | Check with Financial Aid for additional info |
Guide to reading the course schedule
- Course name
- Course number
- Course section: the course section indicates the modality in which the course is offered. There are several types of courses offered at MH that accrue different “types” of credits. Some of these credit types have a credit cap, i.e., students may not take more than the maximum value in those types of credits. See the Course Modality Table below for course modalities, credit types accrued, credit caps, and the code by which these courses are indicated in the section column.
- Credit value of course
- Scheduling information. Students may not enroll in classes where there is a time conflict, even if the conflict is only one hour on a single day. Blended students, when registering for Blended courses in addition to other courses with a synchronous requirement, should be sure to select classes that do not conflict with the Capstone times.
- Course Information. Course-contextual information will be noted here, including prerequisites, course modality, capstone dates, variable credit options, and other relevant information.
Course modality, credit types, and credit cap table
| Course Modality | Credit Type | Credit Type Cap | Section Abbreviation |
| On-Campus | In Person | None | Number (e.g., 1, 2, 04) |
| Blended | In Person | None | B |
| Online (Remote/Asynchronous) | Distance Learning | 43 (41 if admitted before fall 2020), or 15 if sitting for the NY bar | O |
| Remote/Synchronous | Starting fall 2022: Distance Learning | 43 (41 if admitted before fall 2020), or 15 if sitting for the NY bar | R or RS |
| Hybrid On-Campus | In Person | None | HC |
| Hybrid Remote | Distance Learning | 43 (41 if admitted before fall 2020), or 15 if sitting for the NY bar | HR |
Experiential:
|
Out-of-Classroom | 22 (19 if admitted prior to fall 2020) | Dependent. Note that usually Blended students do not enroll in externship courses but submit an externship proposal |
JD Course Requirements
Blended students are auto-enrolled in the following courses:
Year 1 (11 credits per semester)
| Semester 1 | Semester 2 |
| LARC I (3 cr.) | LARC II (3 cr.) |
| Criminal Law (3 cr.) | Property (4 cr.) |
| Torts (4 cr.) | Contracts (4 cr.) |
| Legal Methods (1 cr.; pass/fail grade) |
Year 2 (11 credits per semester)
| Semester 3 | Semester 4 |
| Advocacy: Appellate (1 cr.) | Advocacy: Trial (2 cr.) |
| Constitutional Powers (3 cr.) | Constitutional Liberties (3 cr.) |
| Civil Dispute Resolution (4 cr.) | Constitutional Criminal Procedure (3 cr.) |
| Evidence (3 cr.) | Professional Responsibility (3 cr.) |
Beyond all Blended semester 1-4 auto-enrolled courses, students have additional requirements that need to be met to complete the J.D.:
- Transactions & Settlements or Negotiations:
- Students may take both, but at least one needs to be on their transcript.
- Transactions & Settlements is offered in the spring semester as a Blended course, and Negotiation is offered in the fall and spring semesters as an asynchronous course. Negotiation may also be offered in the summer and J-Term as an in-person course. Students should be sure to plan to take these courses in the appropriate term.
- Foundations of Practice: only required for Blended students admitted in fall 2021 or later. Offered in the fall and summer as an asynchronous course.
- Long Paper, which can be completed in several ways:
- Blended Seminars: offered every fall and spring as Blended A and Blended B options
- Other ARW courses, e.g., Arbitration with Long paper, which is offered only in the spring in a modality available to Blended students
- Journals and other publications
- Independent Long Paper:
- Only for circumstances where a student cannot write on their desired topic in one of the long paper courses
- Requires a professor to agree to supervise the research and writing of the paper
- Can only be written in a student’s final two semesters
- Students should speak with their Academic Advisor if they are interested in the Independent Long Paper
For students who are on academic support programming, there are additional requirements:
- Evidence: Blended students are auto-enrolled in this class in their 3rd semester
- Constitutional Criminal Procedure: Blended students are auto-enrolled in this course in their 4th semester
- Bar Prep MBE/MEE: offered only in the spring. Students should plan to take this course in their final spring semester
- Bar Prep MPT: offered only in the fall. Students should plan to take this course in their final fall semester