During the advance registration period, we collect your course requests and create schedules after the request period is over. Your chance of being placed in a course is not affected by when you enter your requests.

Fall 2021 Advance Registration: June 21-July 16

Enter course requests on Penn InTouch.

• First-year JD students may request enrollment in spring courses only.
• Second- and third-year JD students request enrollment in both fall and spring courses, seminars, clinics, externships, and co-curricular activities.

Review the registration materials carefully. Use the block schedule to avoid time conflicts.  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 week after advance registration closes, the scheduler will post your preliminary schedule. You will be enrolled in no more than 15 credits.  Once your schedule has posted, you can email the Law Registrar’s Office - reg@law.upenn.edu - to increase your credit max to 17.

How Does the Scheduler Work?

• The scheduler works through your course requests in rank order. In other words, the system will look to satisfy your first primary request; if your first primary request closes, the scheduler looks to place you in your alternate request BEFORE it moves to your second request.
• A note on multiple sections: If a course has multiple sections (e.g. Appellate Advocacy, Corporations, Professional Responsibility), the scheduler will look to place you in an alternate section (assuming the section you request closes) UNLESS you select “N” under any section.
• 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 (15 credit max) or until all of your requests have been considered.

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 not be able to access Penn InTouch again until classes begin. You will instead request courses via email to reg@law.upenn.edu and will be enrolled in open courses only; you cannot add to the waitlist of a closed course until the start of the add/drop period.
• List alternate requests for each of your primary requests.
• Request courses in the order of their importance to you.
• 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 as a primary request. (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.

Student Schedules

• You will be notified by the Registrar’s Office when your final schedule is available on Penn InTouch, 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. 

Other Notes on Scheduling

• 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 3Ls and LLMs (with a few exceptions).
• The Registrar may decide to cap the number of students by class category (i.e., 2L, 3L, LLM, ML) after discussion with the faculty member and Deputy Deans. We will let students know as soon as possible by posting it under the “Notes” column on the Course List spreadsheet.

If you try to enroll in a course on Penn InTouch and receive the notice “Permit Required” or “Permission from Department Required” - and you see there are seats available in the class, please note that the class is closed and there is a waitlist. We will fill the open seats from the waitlist.

• Add/drop is open:
  • Full-semester courses — after schedules post in Penn InTouch through the first two weeks of the semester
  • Clinics/externships — after schedules post in Penn InTouch through the first week of the semester
  • Quarter courses (half-semester courses) — after schedules post in Penn InTouch through the first week of the semester
  • Bok courses — after schedules post in Penn InTouch through the first class
• During add/drop, you can add open courses and drop courses using Penn InTouch.
• 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. An alternate request will not generate a spot on the waitlist.

The waitlist is generated from the scheduler results and students are listed in priority order of the initial request.

We conduct all waitlist activity via email. We will not take any requests to add on to a waitlist and will not have to confirm your place on a waitlist.

We will work through all waitlists each day and send out emails (after 12:00 p.m.) to those who are able to be enrolled. You will have until noon the following day to accept your offer to join the class.

Once we have worked through the waitlist, if spots are still available then the class will be open for students to register directly on Penn InTouch.

If you try to enroll in a course on Penn InTouch and receive the notice  “Permit Required” or “Permission from Department Required” - and you see there are seats available in the class, please note that the class is closed and there is a waitlist. We will fill the open seats from the waitlist.

• 1L Block Schedules: Fall 2020 (with rooms)/ Spring 2021
• Course/Seminar/Clinic/Co-Curricular Listing: Each term is tabbed at the bottom of the Excel spreadsheet; first-year courses are listed at the top of the spreadsheet.

Spring 2021

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/Torts, and Legal Practice Skills.) 

First-Year Regulatory Electives (choose one):

• Administrative Law - 1L
• Bankruptcy
• Financial Regulation
• International Law
• Internet Law
• Land Use Law

First-Year General Electives (choose one):

• Gender and the Law
• Intro to Intellectual Property Law and Policy
• Intro to Philosophy of Law
• Intro to U.S. Privacy Law: The Lens of Race
• Judicial Decision-Making
• Law and Inequality
• Law and Society in Japan
• Property

First-Year Regulatory Electives (choose one):

Administrative Law - 1L

Bankruptcy

Financial Regulation

International Law

Internet Law

Land Use Law

First-Year General Electives (choose one):

Gender and the Law

Intro to Intellectual Property Law and Policy

Intro to Philosophy of Law

Intro to US Privacy Law: the Lens of Race

Judicial Decision-Making

Law and Inequality

Law and Society in Japan

Property

• Academic Advising Resources: Curricular Compass and other resources on navigating the course selection process and planning of your legal education
• 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 List Spreadsheet (course name, faculty, course number, credits, notes, meeting time)
• Block Schedules: Fall 2021 UL Block Schedule / Spring 2022 UL Block Schedule
• Student Projects: Register for an Independent Student Project (Independent Study, Supervised Research, Research Assistant, and Teaching Assistant)
• Graduate Courses at Penn: Enroll in a Non-law Course

• 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 through MyCourses.
• Academic Advising: resources on navigating the course selection process and planning of your legal education, including the Curricular Compass
• Penn InTouch Mobile: Access many features of Penn InTouch from your mobile device.

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

• Spring 2021
• Fall 2020
• Spring 2020
• Fall 2019
• Spring 2019
• Fall 2018
• Spring 2018
• Fall 2017
• Spring 2017
• Fall 2016

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