Northern Kentucky University's Salmon P. Chase College of Law is in Highland Heights, within the Cincinnati legal market. It offers full-time, part-time day, and evening options, with programs in business and technology, advocacy, and clinical practice.
This guide walks you through how to get into NKU Chase Law.
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1. NKU Chase Law Admissions Numbers and Statistics
NKU Chase Law Class of 2029:
- LSAT: 75th: 159 | Median: 155 | 25th: 152
- GPA: 75th: 3.71 | Median: 3.49 | 25th: 3.20
NKU Chase Law Class of 2028:
- LSAT: 75th: 157 | Median: 154 | 25th: 152
- GPA: 75th: 3.68 | Median: 3.41 | 25th: 3.15
Chase's 2026 school-wide profile is provisional pending LSAC verification. Compared with the 2025 all-student ABA cohort, the LSAT median rose one point and GPA median rose 0.08. Entering enrollment increased from 155 to 162. These figures combine divisions.
Aim to be at or above at least one median to be competitive. Above both puts you in a stronger position. Below both medians, this is a prayer, not a reach.
For context on how medians affect your strategy, see How to Build a Smart Law School List.
2. NKU Chase Law Application Essays
Personal Statement (required)
Chase requires a personal statement.
In reviewing applications, the admissions committee considers professional experience, leadership, service, and significant achievements alongside academic and testing history.
For more on how to write a personal statement, see my Personal Statement Examples and Personal Statement Guide.
Part-Time Study Explanation (required for part-time applicants)
The school's instructions:
“Applicants to the evening division or part-time day program must explain their need for part-time study, including employment duties and work hours or other responsibilities.”
For more on making all of these essays work together, see my Cohesive Narrative Guide.
Addenda and Character & Fitness (if applicable)
Chase accepts relevant explanations of academic, testing, or employment history. Character-and-fitness disclosures require your own account of the circumstances and disposition, not court records alone. The duty to update continues during enrollment.
I'll be publishing a guide to addenda and character and fitness.
3. NKU Chase Law Resume Requirements
A resume is required. Make your education, employment, leadership, and service easy to follow. Show the responsibilities you held and the results of your work rather than relying on job titles alone.
For more on preparing your resume, see my Resume Examples and Resume Guide.
4. NKU Chase Law Letters of Recommendation
Submit letters of recommendation through LSAC's Credential Assembly Service. Chase needs the CAS report to complete your application.
For more on recommendations, see my LOR Guide (Applicants) and LOR Guide (Writers).
5. NKU Chase Law Interview Process
Chase's admissions committee reviews the application and supporting materials, including academic performance, testing, employment, leadership, and service. Your written application needs to present a clear reason for pursuing law.
6. NKU Chase Law Deadlines and Decision Options
Testing Policy
Chase accepts the LSAT or GRE. Applicants who take both must report the LSAT; GRE results go directly from ETS using code 0985.
If you're considering the GRE, read my LSAT vs. GRE guide before deciding.
Application Dates and Fees
- Applications Open: September 1.
- Priority Scholarship Deadline: February 1.
- Part-Time Evening Summer-Start Priority Deadline: March 15.
- Full-Time, Part-Time Day, and Evening Fall-Start Priority Deadline: April 1.
- Application Fee: $50.
These are Chase's recurring priority dates, not a dated fall-2027 final-deadline calendar. The appropriate application timeline depends on both division and starting term.
Program Formats
The full-time JD takes three years. Part-time day students generally take four to five years, depending on summer enrollment. Flex Place is the evening program's blended delivery model, usually completed in four to four-and-a-half years, with on-campus classes typically once or twice a week in most semesters. It is not a separate fully online JD.
7. NKU Chase Law Scholarships and Financial Aid
Merit Scholarships
Applicants receive automatic consideration for scholarships ranging from $3,000 to full tuition. Renewal requires good academic standing. Summer coursework is excluded unless the award letter expressly includes it; overload credits are also excluded. A residency change that reduces tuition also reduces the scholarship; division or credit-load changes may lead to an award reduction.
Tuition and Budget
For 2026-2027, two full-time semesters of tuition total $25,736 for residents or $40,088 for nonresidents. The published off-campus attendance budgets are $49,280 and $63,632. Those budgets do not separately itemize every fee listed alongside the tuition schedule, including meal-plan, student-organization, and professional-development charges. These are 2026-2027 figures, not a fall-2027 price quote.
Other Aid
Federal-aid consideration starts with the FAFSA. Graduating students may apply for the Finish Line Fund, which provides bar-preparation courses and cash assistance for expenses such as rent or child care. Chase reported no institutional loan-repayment assistance program in its August 2025 ABA public-interest directory entry.
For more on scholarship strategy, see How to Negotiate Law School Scholarships.
8. NKU Chase Law Joint Degree Programs
- JD/MBA with NKU's Haile College of Business: The coordinated program requires 108 credits, including 81 law credits and at least 27 business credits. Students can finish in three years with summers, four without summers, or longer part-time. Admission to each program is separate.
Students complete the first year of law school before beginning MBA courses, then combine law and business coursework. The academic handbook requires students entering from 2022 onward to maintain a 2.750 law GPA after the first full-time year and thereafter. The pairing fits applicants who want to combine transactional legal work with management, finance, or business operations.
9. NKU Chase Law Employment Outcomes (Class of 2025)
NKU Chase Class of 2025 employment outcomes (reported to the ABA, measured 10 months after graduation):
- Full-time, long-term bar-passage-required employment (ABA): 68.8%
- BigLaw (firms with 101+ attorneys): 13.5%
- Federal clerkships: 2.1%
- Public service (including government): 27.1%
Kentucky and Ohio account for most employment, with Indiana the next listed destination. The results point toward a regional practice and public-service school rather than a predominantly large-firm pipeline. The full-time, long-term bar-required figure deserves close attention alongside the tuition and scholarship offer. Evaluate Chase around the legal work you want and the market where you expect to practice.
10. NKU Chase Law Areas of Study and Specializations
Advocacy: The Center for Excellence in Advocacy supports client interviewing, trial preparation, appellate work, and competitions. Its certificate combines written and oral advocacy with client-facing and dispute-resolution skills.
Business and Technology: The W. Bruce Lunsford Academy for Law, Business + Technology is an honors program connecting legal study with quantitative methods, technology, leadership, and business problem-solving. The Center for Law and Entrepreneurship adds opportunities to work with entrepreneurial ventures.
Transactional Practice: The transactional certificate develops agreement drafting and accounting and finance skills. The Small Business & Nonprofit Law Clinic gives students a supervised setting for applying those skills to real organizations.
Child and Family Law: The concentration combines doctrinal courses, simulation work, live-client experience, community service, and court observation. The Children's Law Center Clinic connects the curriculum with education, custody, delinquency, and access-to-services matters.
Labor and Employment Law: The certificate covers labor relations, employment discrimination, benefits, administrative law, and dispute resolution. Students complete a qualifying research project or field placement tied to the subject.
Addiction Law: The Center on Addiction Law and Policy studies how legal institutions address addiction through research, lectures, and professional discussion. Its director, Alex Kreit, teaches criminal law and related regulatory subjects.
11. NKU Chase Law Clinics and Experiential Learning
Chase's clinics cover litigation, transactions, and public service. The Veterans Discharge Upgrade Review Clinic operates as a pro bono opportunity alongside the credit-bearing clinical offerings.
- Children's Law Center Clinic: Students interview, investigate, negotiate, and prepare cases involving children and teenagers. The work requires some weekday business-hour availability and includes an initial training program.
- Kentucky Innocence Project: Students help investigate wrongful-conviction claims through prisoner and witness interviews, crime-scene visits, evidence review, and document preparation. Participation requires a year-long commitment.
- Sixth Circuit Clinic: Students research and brief actual appeals, with some opportunities for oral argument. Classes meet in the evening at a downtown Cincinnati law firm alongside University of Cincinnati law students.
- Small Business & Nonprofit Law Clinic: Students interview and counsel clients, draft documents, and address business and nonprofit legal problems. Business Organizations is a prerequisite or corequisite; admission generally favors third- and fourth-year students.
- Veterans Discharge Upgrade Review Clinic: Students help veterans explain discharge-review requests and navigate the administrative process. It is open to all class years and divisions, with individually managed work schedules.
Pro Bono and Experiential Learning
The JD requires 30 pro bono hours and six experiential credits. Pro bono hours cannot also earn pay or academic credit. Approved externships can be paid and carry credit, subject to educational and supervision requirements. Eligibility starts after 28 credits and completion of basic research and writing courses. Prior placements include the City of Cincinnati law department, Hamilton County Public Defender, General Electric, and Frost Brown Todd. Fieldwork includes research and drafting, with a separate seminar.
12. NKU Chase Law Notable Faculty and Journals
Faculty
- Alex Kreit: Professor of Law and Director of the Center on Addiction Law and Policy. He wrote Criminal Law in Focus and Illegal Drug and Marijuana Law, connecting criminal-law teaching with controlled-substances regulation.
- Michael Mannheimer: Professor of Law and Kentucky Innocence Project coordinator. His book The Fourth Amendment: Original Understandings and Modern Policing examines constitutional criminal procedure; he was elected to the American Law Institute in 2022.
- John Bickers: Constitutional-law professor and faculty adviser to the veterans clinic. Before Chase, he taught at West Point and served as a lawyer and law department manager in the Army Judge Advocate General Corps.
- Christopher Muzzo: Director of the Small Business & Nonprofit Law Clinic. He spent 25 years in private practice handling commercial litigation and transactions and formerly managed the Furnier Muzzo Group.
Journals
- Northern Kentucky Law Review: The student-edited journal publishes scholarship by academics, practitioners, judges, and students. Students work as writers, editors, researchers, and cite-checkers; the publication also maintains a blog and hosts symposia.
13. NKU Chase Law Culture and Student Life
Chase combines a university-campus setting with access to the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky legal communities. Full-time and part-time students share opportunities in clinics, law review, competition teams, and student organizations. The Student Bar Association organizes professional, service, and social activities and participates in faculty committees.
The regional connection is practical. Students can work with Kentucky and Ohio courts, public offices, companies, and firms while developing different views of practice. Flex Place reduces some commuting without removing in-person classes or the scheduling demands of client work.
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Related Reading
→ How to Build a Smart Law School List
→ Should You Apply Early Decision to Law School?
→ How to Negotiate Law School Scholarships
→ 6 Proven Steps to Get Off a Law School Waitlist
→ How to Get Into Law School Below Both Medians
→ What Holistic Law School Admissions Really Means
→ Blog Directory
Note: While I try to keep this guide up to date, always verify deadlines, requirements, and policies at the NKU Chase Law website before applying.
Think you spotted an outdated requirement or something that doesn't look right? Email moshe@sharperstatements.com with the school and a link to the current information.