Founded in 1872, the University of Missouri School of Law is a leader in legal education. The Juris Doctorate (JD) program is a three-year post-baccalaureate degree. The American Bar Association does not recommend any specific bachelor’s degree as preparation for pursuing a JD but does recommend that your major should include coursework that develops your research, critical-reading and writing skills.
Law school administrators strongly recommend that law students purchase a laptop computer for use inside and outside of class all three years students attend Mizzou Law. All law school exams are given on the computer, and while not required, it is much easier to complete the exams digitally than by handwriting thousands of words in a time-limited exam period.
Students can install PrintAnywhere software to allow their laptops to print to the PrintAnywhere printers located on the lower level of the law library. Desktop computers are available for student use in the library, and there are cables, chargers, and adapters available for checkout at the circulation desk.
Recommended Purchases
Keep in Mind When Shopping: Mizzou Law provides basic support for Windows and Mac computers. The Law School does not provide hardware support and recommends TigerTech for service for laptops. Laptops should have at least 16GB of RAM, 256GB of solid state drive (SSD) storage (512 GB recommended) and run a currently supported version of either Windows 11 or macOS. If you are choosing between macOS and Windows, Windows is the more compatible operating system at Mizzou Law and is far more common at law firms.
Academically Priced Software: Microsoft Office 365 is available at no charge to all currently enrolled students and includes OneDrive with 1TB of cloud storage. In addition, other software titles are available through the Division of IT at a significant discount.
Exams on computers: Most professors at the School of Law use Exam4 for exams. Exam4 is only compatible with Windows and macOS and may not be compatible with the latest version. Please make sure your laptop will be compatible by checking your OS version against the information published on the Exam4 support page .
Complete IT onboarding information for new law students is available on the Law student technology reference guide .
Please make sure you review the IT onboarding tasks on that page before Orientation.
