JD Transfer and Visiting

Transfer students have essentially the same curricular opportunities and the same access to the myriad services we provide as students who began their JD program at ASU Law.

Our academic law journals may have supplemental acceptance processes available to incoming Fall transfer students, depending on journal membership needs. ASU Law has five academic journals – the Arizona State Law Journal, the Corporate and Business Law Journal, Jurimetrics, Sports and Entertainment Law Journal, and the Law Journal for Social Justice. The Arizona State Law Journal is our most competitive journal, and may accept 1-2 transfer students during the Fall acceptance process. Fall transfer admits interested in our academic law journals may utilize a special petition process that is available from May 1 to July 15. Regardless of admission date, ASU Law transfer students are encouraged to contact our law journals, to determine if there are spots and application processes available for membership consideration.

All transfer students will have the ability to take part in the normal journal write-on competition following Spring finals in their 2L year.

ASU Law recommends including with your application at least one Letter of Recommendation (LOR) from a professor you had while enrolled in a JD program. LORs should be submitted via LSAC. LORs are not required to complete your transfer application.

Generally speaking, credits earned through regular law school classroom coursework are eligible for transfer consideration. The eligible transfer credits usually correspond with the 1L curriculum offered at ASU Law. Transfer credits will be evaluated upon admission. Transfer credits will not be granted for courses with less than a "C" grade for work completed at an accredited law school. ASU Law may also deny or reduce credits for particular courses. Up to 29 total credits will transfer.

Eventually, all transfer students must provide the most up-to-date official transcripts, with proof of any applicable rank and good academic standing from the prior institution. Students who have completed one semester of grades may apply through the Early Fall option and be considered based on one semester of grades. If you are planning to apply for regular fall admission, you can submit your official transcripts reflecting all completed 1L grades and showing any coursework in which you are currently enrolled. Your current transcript will allow our Admissions Committee to begin reviewing your application. Depending on your admission program option and application status, the Admissions Committee will want to see updated transcripts to evaluate whether your academic performance has improved, regressed, or remained consistent over the course of the current semester.

Once admitted, it is fairly simple for our financial aid department to convert your aid and apply it to your new institution. The admission letter provides details for applying any awarded financial aid to ASU Law.

There is not a minimum GPA requirement in place for the transfer program. Our Admissions Committee reviews each applicant’s file based upon the entirety of their application in order to best predict that each of our accepted students will be successful while in our program and after graduation. That being said, your law school GPA is one of the most objective indicators of continued and future success in any JD program, including ours.

While transfer students are rank-ineligible, they are eligible to earn academic honors (cum laude, magna cum laude, or summa cum laude) based on their final cumulative grade point average at ASU Law. Additionally, transfer students can use their GPA at graduation to project where they would have been ranked if they had been eligible to be ranked after transfer.