Public Administration, M.P.A. / J.D.

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The School of Law, in association with the Graduate School, offers a program that enables a student to earn both the Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D.) and Master of Public Administration (M.P.A.) degrees in three to four years of academic work. This degree program may be particularly beneficial to students with interests in administrative positions within government, public agencies, and institutions.

Both degrees will be awarded upon completion of 108 hours (78 hours of law courses and a total of 30 hours of public administration hours). This is made possible by allowing 12 hours of approved law courses to transfer as elective credit toward the M.P.A. degree and vice versa. These transfers are of credit hours, not grades. Therefore, graduate course work will not be computed in a student’s Law School GPA and class ranking.

Interested students must apply for the program no later than their third semester in Law School. The first year of study consists entirely of law courses. During the second and third years, the remaining required law courses are to be completed together with selected law electives and an appropriate number of graduate business core courses. Students may enroll in the Graduate School at Texas Tech University and complete all leveling course work and earn up to 12 credit hours toward the M.P.A. in the academic year before matriculation to the Law School. Students who have earned more than 12 credit hours (excluding leveling course work) before matriculation to the Law School are ineligible for the J.D. dual-degree program.

Students must meet the admission requirements for both the Law School and Graduate School. The Graduate School will accept the LSAT in lieu of the GRE or GMAT exam. The degree is designed so that students complete the first year of law school before taking a mix of PUAD and law school courses. Students may begin a dual degree with PUAD courses, however, if they do not take more than 12 hours before matriculating to the law school.

In no case will a student be permitted to enter the joint program if the student has not been accepted to the M.P.A. part of the program by the end of the student’s fourth semester in law school.