Minimum Application Requirements

Although most candidates in the JSD Program first spend a year in the Law School's LLM Program, top LLM or JD graduates of other law school programs in the United States may be admitted to the Chicago JSD Program. Candidates with a law degree (undergraduate and/or graduate) from other common law and commonwealth nations may also be considered where an individual has an outstanding academic record and sufficient prior work that they are prepared to embark on a dissertation project.

Applicants to the JSD Program who have studied within the past five years for at least a full academic year in a United States law school by the time they would enroll in our JSD Program will not need to take a language exam. Candidates who do not meet this requirement will need to take the TOEFL or IELTS exam if English is not their native language. The language exam results must be from an examination taken within two years of the date of the JSD application and must meet the following minimum requirements:

TOEFL: A cumulative score of at least 104 on the examination

IELTS: A cumulative score of at least 7.5 and sub scores of at least 7.0 on each of the four parts of the examination