Registration FAQs

Email lawreg@pitt.edu to request a special permission number for course registration. Please include the catalog number, course number, and your peoplesoft ID in the request.

• 29-credit cap on study abroad
• 29-credit cap on Distance Learning
• 18-credit cap per semester
• 10-credit per-semester cap on clinic credits
• 6-credit cap on non-law courses
• 6-credit cap on summer study at other law schools
• 6-credit cap on activities for credit (e.g., moot court and journal)
• 4-credit cap on externships (with the exception of the DC semester)

These are generally caps on the number of credits that can be counted toward the JD degree. Even if a course cannot count toward the JD, it will still appear on your transcript if it was taken at or through the University of Pittsburgh.

Enrollment priorities may limit course registration during the first two weeks. Third-year students can register for limited (3L priority) and general enrollment courses. Second-year students can register for core (2L priority) and general courses. If you're ineligible, you'll receive an error message. You must wait until open enrollment to register for those courses. Check course descriptions on the Law School web pages for specific priorities. If you are eligible but still getting an error, there may be a prerequisite you haven't completed.

If you register for a course that will cause a time conflict, you will get a “Time Conflict” error message. If the course requires departmental consent, you will get a “Departmental Consent Required” error message. If you are trying to register for the MSL offering of the course, you will get an “Out of Career” error message. If a course has a hard-coded prerequisite attached to it, and you have not taken the prerequisite previously or in the current term, you will get a “Requisite Not Met” error message.

Students attempting to register for a full course should not contact faculty members for permission. To register for full classes, you must request permission by emailing lawreg@pitt.edu beginning at noon the day before the last day of the add/drop period. In the email, please include your PeopleSoft ID, course title, and 4-digit catalog number. If permission is granted, you will be issued a Permission Number via email,  which you will enter when you add the course.

After open enrollment ends, you may only withdraw from or drop a course with the permission of the Vice Dean or Dean of Students. To obtain permission, please email the Vice Dean or Dean of Students, with a copy to lawreg@pitt.edu. In the email, explain the circumstances surrounding your request. If a request for a monitored withdrawal is approved, the University charges no processing fee. If special circumstances exist and a request to drop a class is approved, then the University will charge a late add/drop fee.

All externships require departmental consent and require a permission number for registration. Students who are attempting to register for an externship should email lawreg@pitt.edu after their externship has been approved. Make sure to include the catalog and course numbers, as well as your PeopleSoft number, in your email. The permission number(s) will be emailed to you.

The journal editors will submit a list of students each semester to the Registrar’s Office, and the Registrar’s Office will register students for the course. Journal credits do count towards the 18-credit maximum per semester and are also subject to the cap on activities for credit. For joint-degree students who are primarily registered in their graduate career, the journal credit will be added to their graduate career registration. Any credit cap imposed by the primary school for that term will apply, and the student will be responsible for any tuition charges resulting from the registration. Journal credits cannot be deferred to avoid additional tuition charges; however, students may, with the journal’s permission, work on a journal without receiving academic credit.

TAs receive one credit per semester. Faculty supervisors will submit a list of students at the beginning of each semester to the Registrar’s Office, and the Registrar’s Office will then add the course to students' registrations. TA training credits do count towards the 18-credit maximum per semester.

Except for the first semester of your first year, you are required to meet with your advisor once each semester and to have your advisor sign a designated form, which the Vice Dean will email to you in advance of any scheduled meetings.  You are then required to submit that form through the DocuSign workflow to the Registrar’s Office after your meeting. Failure to submit the form will mean that the ADV hold will remain on your account, and you will not be able to register for the next semester’s classes.

You can register for a course by completing the Permission to Register Non-Law.pdf. Once you have filled out the form, please bring it, along with a course description, to the Registrar's Office. You will also need to contact the department offering the course to obtain a permission number to register.

Full-time students are permitted to register for a course at a PCHE institution in the fall and spring terms. The course, earned grade, and units will appear on your Pitt transcript but will not be included in your Law GPA. Students who wish to cross-register must obtain the PCHE Form from the Law School Registrar's Office. 

You may register for auditing a course during the open enrollment period. The open enrollment period begins two weeks after the registration appointments begin and runs through the end of the first week of class.

You may elect to convert a letter grade of C or higher in any upper-level course to a “Satisfactory,” represented by an “S.” You may not elect to convert a grade of C-, D, or F. Once an election to convert a letter grade to an S is communicated to the Registrar, that election may not be reversed, revoked, or changed.

The following limitations apply to any election to convert a letter grade to an S:

• You may not convert a letter grade in any required first-year course.
• You may not convert a letter grade in any clinic course.
• You may not convert a letter grade in any course that is to be used to satisfy the legal profession (ethics) graduation requirement.
• You may convert a letter grade to an S in no more than two courses during your entire law school career.

To elect the S/U option, you must email lawreg@pitt.edu by the deadlines indicated. The deadline to request a letter grade conversion for the Fall 2025 semester is noon on Tuesday, January 6, for all students. Please include your name, PeopleSoft number, and course title of the course you wish to convert to S/U.

Call the University Technology Help Desk at 412-624-HELP [4357]. You can refer to the interactive demonstration video posted in My Pitt. To access that, click Learn More just below the Student Center link on your portal home page. You can also visit the Law School Registrar’s Office during business hours or email lawreg@pitt.edu.

A student may earn a maximum of six academic credits through participation in approved student activities, including moot court competitions, journal participation, and other approved activities. Activities for credit include participation in moot court competitions, journal participation, and other law school competitions approved for academic credit. A student may earn a maximum of six academic credits through participation in student activities approved for academic credit. A student may register for a maximum of two moot court or other related competitions, such as trial contests, per semester, and may receive academic credit for each competition. Externship credits and TA Training are not considered credit-bearing activities and do not count toward the six-credit maximum for student activities.

If you are planning to register for an independent study for academic credit, you will need to complete the appropriate independent study form, which can be found on the Registration Forms section of the Law School website. Failure to complete a form and register for the independent study credit in the semester in which you are completing the work before the end of the add/drop period will result in not receiving credit for the work.

Students can register for an intersession course when they register for their Spring classes. Students may only take one intersession course per intersession term. The intersession course does not count against the 18-credit maximum for the Spring term. Please contact lawreg@pitt.edu for more information or if you are having trouble registering. First-year students are not permitted to take an intersession course until they have completed their first year of Law School.

Students may register for an intersession course at any time between their 1L and 3L years. Students may only take one intersession course per term. 

If you plan on taking a leave of absence or are transferring out of the Law School, you should drop all of your classes through your my.pitt.edu account in PeopleSoft. Classes can be dropped without penalty through the end of the open enrollment (add/drop) period. You can also drop all of your courses by contacting the Student Appeals Office. Detailed information can be found here. You must also complete a Change of Status form and return it to the Law School Registrar’s Office.

Any coursework taken at another law school over the summer must be approved by the Vice Dean. Once approval is granted for the coursework to count toward your law degree, you may register for the course(s) following the procedures of the sponsoring school. Once the coursework is completed, it is the student's responsibility to ensure that an official transcript from the other school is submitted to the Law School promptly so that the credits can be posted to the student's academic record. The course(s) will show as “Transfer Credits” only. A student must earn a passing grade as defined by the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. The actual letter grade will not figure in computing the student’s Law School average. Under no circumstances will a student be permitted to take a course elsewhere for credit for which they have received a failing grade at this school. 

If the coursework is approved to fulfill any of the Law School graduation requirements, the Registrar’s Office will need an email or something in writing from the Dean’s Office authorizing the approval. Only Law courses taken at the University of Pittsburgh can be flagged on your degree progress report, and any transfer credits that will be used to fulfill a specific graduation requirement will not populate the specified requirement of the degree progress report. However, the Registrar’s Office will have an internal record of the approval.

A total of six (6) credits may be taken in another law school’s summer program. Work completed in a summer program at another law school does not count as a full semester toward satisfying the six-semester residency requirement for graduation.

The waitlist feature in PeopleSoft is currently available only for certain undergraduate courses. While you may be able to select the waitlist function, you will not be able to use it. No further decision has been made on when or how this functionality will be implemented for other careers beyond undergraduate, at this time.

Email the general address at lawreg@pitt.edu. You may also contact the Registrar, Beth Liberatore, at 412-648-1409 or btl@pitt.edu, or Assistant Registrar and Joint Degree Program Coordinator, Jaime Horensky, at 412-648-1407 or Horensky@pitt.edu.

You can find your PeopleSoft ID on my.pitt.edu in the Student Services Center.

For the Law School's attendance policy--including a description of how to check your class attendance-- click here.

The Advisement Report was developed primarily to help students self-monitor their progress toward graduation. Students can access the information at any time the PeopleSoft system is available.

Students should view and print their Advisement Report at least once a semester and prior to registration, when they meet with their faculty mentor. To access the information, log in to your my.pitt account and search for Student Center. Then go to My Academics > View My Advisement Report to view and print your report. When reviewing the information, you may find things you have questions about or that appear to be discrepancies. You should compare the information on your advisement report to the information on the Law School website for graduation requirements to determine what requirements you have met and what requirements you still need to fulfill for graduation. Keep in mind that courses you are currently registered for will not show as satisfying a specific requirement until after you have completed the course.