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 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 who are attempting to register for a course that is full should not contact faculty members for permission to register. In order to register for classes that are full, you must request permission by emailing lawreg@pitt.edu. 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 send an email to 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 fee for processing the request. 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 are departmental consent and require a permission number for registration. Students who are attempting to register for an externship, should email to 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. In the case of joint degree students who are primary 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 be in effect 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.

TA’s 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 student 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 be 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 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 from them to register for the course.

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 deadlines to make elections to convert a letter grade for this semester is TBD. The time stamp on the email will be noted as the official time of the request. You should 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 come to the Law School Registrar’s Office during business hours or email lawreg@pitt.edu.

Activities for credit include moot court competition and journal participation. A student may earn a maximum of six academic credits through participation in students activities approved for academic credit. A student may register for only one moot court per semester and may not receive credit for the same moot court activity in more than one semester. Externship credits and TA Training are not activities for credit.

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 will need to 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 responsibility of the student to assure that an official transcript from the other school is submitted to the Law School in a timely manner so the credits can be posted to your 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 given permission to take a course elsewhere for credit for which a failing grade has been received in 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, though 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.  The work completed in a summer program at another law school does not qualify as a full semester for purposes of satisfying the six-semester residency requirement for graduation.

The waitlist feature in PeopleSoft is only available for certain undergraduate courses at the present time. 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.

There are several ways to contact the Registrar's Office. You can e-mail the general address at lawreg@pitt.edu. You can also contact the Registrar, Beth Liberatore, directly by calling 412-648-1409 or emailing btl@pitt.edu. You can also contact her assistant, Jaime Horensky, directly by calling 412-648-1407 or emailing 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 for students to self-monitor their progress toward graduation. Students can access the information anytime the PeopleSoft system is available.

Students should view and print their Advisement Report report at least once a semester, as well as prior to registration when you meet with your faculty mentor. To access the information, login 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 that you have questions about or that may appear to be a discrepancy. 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 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.