J.D./M.A.

Students admitted to the School of Law for the following fall who would like to be considered for the paired degree program should notify the law school’s admissions office. Their law school application file will be forwarded to the university’s Graduate Admissions Office for possible admission to the PCAS Master of Arts degree in Applied Sociology – Nonprofit Leadership. Current law students may apply to the PCAS at any time during the first two years of law school.

Full-time law students may not begin their M.A. coursework before the fourth semester of law school. Part-time law students may not begin their M.A. coursework before the sixth semester of law school. A PCAS student must begin law studies in the first August following his or her admission to the J.D. program and complete the first three semesters of the J.D. program without interruption.

Students who have been admitted to both the university’s J.D. program and the university’s M.A. program in Applied Sociology–Nonprofit Leadership should notify the School of Law’s Registrar in order to receive the benefit of the program’s reduced number of credit hours for the J.D. degree.

Students may do this by checking the appropriate box on their work statements during an enrollment period.

To participate in the program, students must be admitted to both schools. All of the usual entrance requirements apply. There is no required sequence for admission: students may apply and matriculate at either school first.

Participants must complete 84 credit hours in the School of Law and 30 credit hours in the Petree College of Arts & Sciences (PCAS). This compares with 90 hours required in the School of Law and 36 hours required in the PCAS if the degrees were pursued outside of the program. Participants who are enrolled as full-time students in the School of Law must complete their first three semesters of law school without interruption.

Participants who are enrolled as part-time students in the School of Law must complete their first six semesters of law school without interruption, although it is possible to begin the M.A. coursework during the sixth semester.

In the School of Law, participants must complete Nonprofit Organizations, Taxation of Charities and Nonprofit Organizations and the Corporate Counsel Externship program (with a placement in a nonprofit setting).

Participants are encouraged (but not required) to complete Agency and Unincorporated Business Associations, Contract Drafting and Client Representation in Negotiation, and are also encouraged (but not required) to complete their upper-class writing requirement through a seminar paper dealing with nonprofit organizations. In the PCAS, participants are exempt from taking Nonprofit Law and Professional Project and Capstone.