Law (JD)

If you want to be a lawyer, you have to live it. At Northeastern, you’ll live it like nowhere else. As a result of our co-op program, you’ll graduate with almost a year of full-time legal work experience. You’ll spend your first year diving deeply into the fundamentals of the American legal system, taking required courses such as Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, and Property Law. Through the year-long Legal Skills in Social Context course, you’ll develop essential skills — from legal research to client representation — and then put them into practice through a social justice community project. In your second and third years, you’ll have the chance to focus on the topics you find most intriguing and relevant to your future path, choosing from dozens of specialized courses, ranging from International Trade to Employment Discrimination. In upper-level terms, you and your peers will delve into real legal challenges for actual clients through co-ops in every field of law and in every corner of the globe, improving your understanding of the law in action and providing valuable context for your academic pursuits.

At Northeastern, we believe the best lawyers of tomorrow will be fluent not only in the language of the law, but also in the language of clients. These client languages include science, business, technology, empirical research, creative arts, and pretty much every aspect of human endeavor for which lawyers are needed to smooth transactions and ensure the pre-eminence of fair play. Our law school is at the forefront of providing such training, not only through our Cooperative Legal Education Program, but also through our concentrations, which provide Northeastern law students with a competitive advantage in their specific fields of interest. Our eight concentrations:

• Business and Commercial law
• Criminal Law and Justice
• Labor, Work & Income
• Health Law and Policy
• Law and Development
• Intellectual Property and Innovation
• International Law and Human Rights
• Poverty Law and Economic Justice

More Details

The nation’s leader in experiential legal education since 1968, Northeastern University School of Law guarantees JD students a rigorous foundation in legal theory combined with an unparalleled full year of practical legal work.

• Resumé
• Personal statement
• Current CAS report that includes LSAT score(s) (no more than 5 years old)
• One letter of recommendation
• All required transcripts
• LSAT scores
• You may also choose to provide a response to one of our optional essay topics

Once your application is submitted, received, and processed, you will be able to access your Application Status Check. If you are required to provide further information regarding your proficiency in English, you will be able to complete the requirement in several ways, depending on your familiarity with English, and the frequency with which you use English each and every day:

• Non-native English-speaking applicants will be required to submit official and valid results from one of the following English Language Tests:
  • C1 Advanced or C2 Proficiency (Cambridge English)
  • Duolingo English Test (DET)
  • IELTS Academic
  • PTE Academic
  • TOEFL Internt-based Test (CEEB Code: 3667) Northeastern will accept either the in-person version completed in a test center, or the TOEFL iBT Home Edition
• However, based on your academic environment and the primary instructional language in either your high school or university, you may be eligible for a waiver. All waivers must be submitted through your Application Status Check. For additional information and to determine whether or not you are eligible for a waiver, please read the section below on waiving the English proficiency requirement.

Please note: Northeastern’s Admissions Committee reserves the right to request proof of English language proficiency from any applicant, regardless of citizenship or first language, at any time during the evaluation process.

• 1.Create your application

  Submit your application through The Common Application or the Coalition Application (both are accepted). Once you have created your application, please select Northeastern University to directly submit your application to us. Application fee of $75 or need-based fee waiver* *Northeastern accepts need-based fee waivers from the Common Application, the Coalition Application, as well as organizations such as the College Board and ACT, or in a written request from a school official.

• 2.Submit all required materials

  Double check to make sure that you have submitted all required materials. Even if your application has been submitted, we cannot begin reviewing your file until all of your required materials have been received. For applicants applying for the 2022-2023 academic year, Northeastern University is test-optional and does not require standardized testing to complete an application for admission.

• 3.Check your application status

  Within seven days of applying, you should receive a confirmation email containing your Northeastern University ID number and instructions for setting up your Application Status Check account. To ensure all of the necessary documents have been submitted, and for updates or information about your application, visit your application status check.