Students can pursue the MLIS Law program online or on-campus in Seattle. Online students may attend full-time or part-time.

*Find an upcoming law librarianship information session.*

Combine your background in law with new skills in knowledge organization that will transform your career. As a law librarian and legal information professional, you will tap into the power of information to support the mission of courts, federal and state government, law schools, corporations and more.

The UW iSchool’s law librarianship program provides the highest level of preparation for a career in legal information. The curriculum blends a strong theoretical foundation in the principles of information science with the specialized legal research, technological and operational background you will need to thrive as a law librarian. An accompanying internship allows you to further build your technical skills.

Admission to the law librarianship program requires the completion of a JD from an ABA-accredited law school (or a foreign equivalent law degree). Classes are offered over four consecutive academic quarters in the residential mode and  over seven quarters for the online, part-time mode. The Law MLIS degree requirements differ from the residential and online MLIS programs, although MLIS residential students without a JD may take some of the specific legal information classes as electives.

Curricular & Experiential Program Components

The curricular component of the program is 9 months for full-time students and 22 months for part-time students, beginning in autumn quarter and ending the following accelerated spring quarter. Students in the program will earn the MLIS degree with a specialization in Law Librarianship after successful completion of 36 quarter credit hours. The program follows the UW Academic Calendar.

The experiential component of the program for residential students is an internship working in the Gallagher Law Library, which is part of the UW School of Law. During the internship, law librarianship students will be trained in a variety of operational aspects and special projects in the law library to make transitioning to the profession and work environments easier.  

Learn more about the courses and degree requirements in our MLIS Law Librarianship program.

More Information

• Join us for an upcoming information session.
• Dig into the details in our Law Librarianship FAQ.
• Read more about the history of the law librarianship program and the work of past law librarianship students in the law school's institutional repository. 
• For more information about a career in the legal information profession, visit the American Association of Law Libraries' Education for a Career in Law Librarianship webpage.

Contact Us

For further information, contact the iSchool (iAsk@uw.edu) or the Law Librarianship program director, Carla Wale (cpwale@uw.edu).