Your Experience

With our innovative BA or BS/Juris Doctor (3+3) program, you can earn a bachelor’s degree and complete law school in 6 years.

Whatever your major, we’ll help you shape your experience in a way that reflects your interests and professional ambitions. From corporate law to criminal defense litigation and environmental law, you’ll have a multitude of career paths within the legal field, government or the nonprofit world. You’ll receive consistent guidance from both the pre-law adviser and your undergraduate major adviser to keep you on track with the appropriate courses and ensure that you’re ready to begin law school during your senior year.

Based on your major and the number of credits you enter the program with, you may be able to complete all of your undergraduate credit requirements by the end of your junior year and then start your JD degree full time in your fourth year. Otherwise you will take both law courses and your remaining undergraduate courses during a bridge semester in the fall of your senior year, with an additional summer session of law classes.

Program benefits:

  • Completion of two degrees in 6 years (one year less than the traditional path)
  • Guaranteed space in Quinnipiac housing for 4 years
  • Option of attending a 1-credit LSAT prep class
  • Interaction with law school dean and faculty throughout the undergraduate years
  • Continued merit scholarship through law school, subject to the conditions listed below
  • Fixed tuition for the first 4 years

There are 2 options for completion of the 3+3 program:

Option 1: Students complete a minimum of 90 undergraduate credits, meeting all major and University Curriculum requirements by the end of their third year. In year four, students become full-time law students and will count up to 30 law school credits toward completion of their undergraduate degree. Students earn a bachelor’s degree by the end of their first year of law school/fourth year of college.

Option 2: Students complete a minimum of 105 undergraduate credits by the end of the third year. The fall semester of the fourth year will be a “bridge” semester in which the student will take 6 credits of undergraduate courses along with 10 credits of law school courses. Students will then take law courses exclusively beginning in the second semester of their fourth year. Option 2 has the additional requirement of 6 credits of law school courses in the summer between the fourth and the fifth years. Students will receive their bachelor’s degree at the end of the bridge semester.