Students request enrollment in courses during the open advance registration period for the Law School each term.  Courses are added to students’ primary carts in Path@Penn. 

During the advance registration period, your course requests are being collected.  Schedules are created after the advance registration period closes. Your chance of being placed in a course is not affected by when you enter your requests. 

Enrollment priority is given to graduating students, with few exceptions.  In order to achieve this, when a class is over-subscribed (i.e., a waitlist is generated), the Registrar will reserve seats based on students’ class category, with priority given to the category L3.  JD students have priority enrollment over non-JD students in certain essential courses, such as Professional Responsibility.

2L/3L, ML and LLM students request enrollment in fall courses in the summer; spring course requests are entered in November.  1L students request enrollment in two spring elective courses. (from the list of regulatory and general elective courses).

Please review these quick reference guides on using Path@Penn:

• • • Advance Registration Overview (.pdf)
    • How to Create a New Cart in Path (video)
    • Registration Tips Handout (.pdf)

Review the Law School’s registration materials carefully. Use the block schedule (linked above) to avoid time conflicts and review the course descriptions in the Course Finder. 

Request a full complement of Law classes, up to or even above your desired credit load. Be sure to choose alternate courses in case your primary requests cannot be satisfied.

About two weeks after advance registration closes, the scheduler will post your preliminary schedule. You will be enrolled in no more than 17 credits.  17 is the max credits per term.

How Does the Scheduler Work?

• The scheduler works through your course requests in rank order.  Each school at Penn has a priority scheme that gives preference to students based on their division and year of study. The Law School gives enrollment priority to graduating students. In order to achieve this, when a class is over-subscribed (i.e., a waitlist is generated), the Registrar will reserve seats based on students’ class category, with priority given to category L3. JD students have priority enrollment over non-JD students in certain essential courses, such as Professional Responsibility.
• The scheduler will not enroll you in courses with time conflicts.
• The above steps are repeated for each course request until you reach your desired credit load (17 credit max) or until all of your requests have been considered.
• Please review these quick reference guides on using Path@Penn:
  • • Advance Registration Overview (.pdf)
    • How to Create a New Cart in Path (video)
    • Registration Tips Handout (.pdf)

How Can I Get the Courses I Want?

• Take advantage of advance registration.
  • If you fail to submit your course requests during advance registration, you will be able to enroll in open courses, using Path@Penn, after schedules come out for that term.  
• Request courses in the order of their importance to you.  
• Request alternate courses requests for each primary request.
• Avoid time conflicts. (Note that an alternate request may be in time conflict with its primary request, however.)
• Do not enter a course more than once. (If you can’t get into a course using a higher ranked number, you won’t have success getting into it using a lower ranked number.)

Holds on Your Account: You will not be able to enter course requests if you are on financial or student health hold. The Law School cannot lift these holds, so it is up to you to take the following step(s).

• Financial holds: Resolve your University financial obligations by calling the Student Financial Information Center at 215-898-1988.
• Student health holds: The University’s Student Health Services requires that all full-time students are fully immunized. Any student not complying with these requirements will have a hold placed on your account.

Your Schedule:

• You will be notified by the Registrar’s Office when your final schedule is available on Path@Penn, approximately two weeks after the close of advance registration. Once schedules are available, you can view your Law courses on Canvas; non-law courses are not hosted on the Law Canvas site. 

Registration Priority Rules:

• • Keep a copy of your course requests!
  • Each school at Penn has a priority scheme that gives preference to students based on their division and year of study. The Law School gives enrollment priority to graduating students. In order to achieve this, when a class is over-subscribed (i.e., a waitlist is generated), the Registrar will reserve seats based on students’ class category, with priority given to category L3. JD students have priority enrollment over non-JD students in certain essential courses, such as Professional Responsibility.

• Add/drop/swap is open for you to make changes to your schedule during a set period of time after your schedule comes out and through the first two weeks of the term (for semester long courses). The add/drop period ends after the first week of classes for quarter courses (that meet half of the semester). For classes that meet over a special session, you can request to drop the class by emailing the Law Registrar’s Office (reg@law.upenn.edu), after the first class.  After students confirm and commit to a spot in a clinic, they may not drop without permission from the instructor and the Dean of Students. Further information on clinic enrollment can be found on the Enrollment Procedures for Clinical Courses webpage. 
• During add/drop, you can add open courses and drop courses using Path@Penn.  
• Add/Drop/Swap Handout (.pdf) - resource prepared by the Office of the University Registrar 
• After the end of add/drop, drops for all courses require the permission of the instructor. If you drop any activity (course, seminar, etc.) after October 15 (Fall) / February 15 (Spring), a W (withdrew) will be noted on your transcript next to the activity that was dropped.
• You cannot enroll in a course after the add/drop period has concluded.

Any course, seminar, clinic, or externship that reaches its max capacity will generate a waitlist. The waitlist comprises students who requested the activity as a PRIMARY request during advance registration and were closed out. It is important to note that alternate requests do not land on the waitlist.

The waitlist is generated from the scheduler results and students are listed in priority order,  3Ls followed by 2Ls, and then by the rank of the primary request.

We conduct all waitlist activity via email.

We will not take any requests to add to a waitlist and students do not have to confirm their place on a waitlist.

We will work through waitlists each day.  We typically send out invitations to enroll via email each day after 12:00 pm.  You will have until noon the following day to accept your offer to join the class and claim the permit.

Once we have worked through the full waitlist, and if spots are still available in the course, we will open the course for students to register directly in Path@Penn.

Spring 2024 

You have the opportunity to request enrollment in two spring electives, choosing one course from the regulatory elective group and one course from the general elective group. The Registrar’s Office will enroll you in your required spring courses: Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Civil Procedure (for Section 3) and Legal Practice Skills.

Regulatory Electives (choose one as a primary + one as an alternate)

Administrative Law
Bankruptcy
International Law
Internet Law
Land Use Law

General Electives (choose one as a primary + one as an alternate)*

Access to Justice
Chinese Law
Intro to Intellectual Property Law and Policy
Intro to Law and Economics
Judicial Decision-Making
Mental Health Law
National Security Law
Privacy Law
Property Law
Reproductive Rights and Justice

• Course Finder: a tool to search and review the curriculum and review course descriptions, course concentration areas, and skills training options
• Course Evaluations: Course evaluations are available through MyCourses. Please note that evaluations for 1L required courses are not available online.
• Exam Schedules & Policies and Procedures

• Course Finder: Search and review the curriculum and review course descriptions, course concentration areas, and skills training options
• Course Evaluations: Online evaluations can be found linked from myCourses.
• Advance registration scheduler archives - below!

Beginning fall 2022, the University converted to Banner. We are no longer able to report on the results of advance registration, as seen in the detailed reports listed below, so we are including a copy of the course lists, by academic year, that shows the closed courses as highlighted - please note the terms are tabbed at the bottom of the spreadsheet:

- Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 Course List (excel)

- Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 Course List (excel)

Advance Registration Scheduler Results (lists closed courses, max enrollment, and actual enrollment):

• Spring 2022
• Fall 2021
• Spring 2021
• Fall 2020
• Spring 2020

Master in Law courses are specifically designed to offer background and expertise to students and staff who are not pursuing a traditional law degree (JD, LLM, LLCM, SJD).

Penn graduate and upper-class undergraduate students can request enrollment in upper-level JD courses (first-year courses are for JD students only) on a space available basis. 

Review ML curriculum and registration forms here:  Master in Law Course Offerings