Legal Information Management and Analysis, MS/JD

You must fulfill the course requirements for both the Department of Information Sciences (IS) and the School of Law.

All MS/JD students are required to take Law Library Administration (cross-listed in IS and the School of Law).

JD candidates, as part of their School of Law program, are strongly encouraged to take a broad variety of courses to become familiar with a range of legal information.

University policy requires that the total shared credit towards the MS and JD degrees does not exceed 13 credit hours.

IS: The MS degree is awarded on the completion of 36 credit hours, 9 attributable to core required courses. IS will accept a maximum of 6 credits from another graduate department or school toward the MS. You must file a correct plan of study with the IS office before being eligible for graduation.

School of Law: The JD degree is awarded on the completion of 90 credit hours, 31.5 in the core first-year program. The remaining 58.5 credits are earned through required upper division writing and skills courses, along with electives and at least one seminar. The School of Law will accept up to 9 hours of law-related graduate courses in other departments toward the JD degree.

The sequence of the first two years may be reversed.

• Year 1: Law (31.5 credits: core program)
• Year 2: IS (24 credits)
• Year 3: Law (28.5 credits; includes 1 or 2 IS or cross-listed courses)
• Year 4: Law (30 credits; includes 1 or 2 IS or cross-listed courses)

Separate applications must be submitted and you must be admitted to the School of Law as well as the Graduate School of Education Department of Information Science. Follow the normal admission procedure for each unit.

You can apply to both schools at the same time; or, if you are already admitted to the JD or the MS program, you can apply for the dual major during your first year and seek admission to the other school.

You must have received an undergraduate bachelor degree with a GPA of 3.0 or better by the intended beginning semester. Applications with lower GPA’s may still be considered and granted a “conditional admission” (see below for more information). 

Submit your completed online application, which includes:

• Application fee: A $50 non-refundable application fee, submitted electronically through UB's ePayment system.
• Graduate Record Exam or MAT scores, including verbal, quantitative and writing sections.
  
  You may be exempt from the GRE/MAT requirement if one of the following is true:
  1. You already have a master’s degree and a GPA in that degree of 3.5 or greater
  2. You already have a PhD or equivalent (e.g., EdD, JD)
• Contact information for at least three individuals who will each be asked to provide an electronic recommendation letter.
• Unofficial transcripts from all colleges attended. (UB transcripts are automatically submitted for current UB students and alumni.)
• Statement of Education and Career Goals: A detailed statement describing your reasons for pursuing a graduate degree in the information science field. Include your professional goals and objectives and indicate any area of special interest within the field.

Conditional Admission Status: You may be admitted conditionally to this MS program when you do not meet all admission requirements (most often because of an undergraduate GPA below 3.0) but your personal statements, transcripts, entrance examination scores, employment history and letters of reference demonstrate potential for success. At the end of the semester in which you have attempted 9 credit hours in the program — including two core courses (e.g., LIS 507, LIS 508, LIS 575) (courses with a grade of R/resigned do not count as attempted, but I and U do) — your academic standing will be reviewed by IS staff. At the time of the review, if you meet all the conditions of good academic standing and have no incomplete or unsatisfactory grades, conditional status is automatically lifted and you are considered to be in good academic standing.

Former/Maiden Name: Please provide us with your former/maiden name if you have one. When requesting transcripts, please ask the sending institution to indicate your current name and former/maiden name.

Admission Decision: The admission decision will be communicated to you as soon as review is complete. The decision is based on a number of factors and is the result of a thorough and deliberate process. All decisions are final and cannot be appealed.

Graduates of this program go on to become:

• law librarians
• legal information professionals