Wake Forest University School of Law is a private law school in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with a relatively small entering class. Its offerings include appellate advocacy, health justice, intellectual property, environmental law, and business law, supported by seven clinics.
This guide walks you through how to get into Wake Forest Law.
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1. Wake Forest Law Admissions Numbers and Statistics
Wake Forest Law Class of 2029:
- LSAT: 75th: 169 | Median: 167 | 25th: 166
- GPA: 75th: 3.90 | Median: 3.79 | 25th: 3.59
Wake Forest Law Class of 2028:
- LSAT: 75th: 168 | Median: 166 | 25th: 163
- GPA: 75th: 3.90 | Median: 3.79 | 25th: 3.60
From fall 2025 to fall 2026, the LSAT median rose one point, while the 25th percentile rose three. The GPA median stayed at 3.79. The latest profile reports 201 entrants, compared with 204 in the 2025 ABA report. That combination makes the stronger LSAT distribution more important than the small change in class size.
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. Wake Forest Law Application Essays
Personal Statement (required)
Wake requires a personal statement alongside a separate Imagining Your Future essay.
For more on how to write a personal statement, see my Personal Statement Examples and Personal Statement Guide.
Imagining Your Future (required)
This is a distinct required essay, not an optional Why Wake supplement.
Optional Statement / Why Wake Forest
Wake’s published August 2024 guidance describes optional essays with a two-page maximum.
The school's instructions:
“You may upload an optional statement to your applicant describing any other information about yourself that you wish to share that is not included in your personal statement. Optional statement topics: interest or preference in attending Wake Forest Law compared to other law schools; describe how the ethos of Wake Forest University’s motto, Pro Humanitate (“for humanity”), applies to your past experiences and your plans for the future as a law student and attorney. Uploading an optional statement is not required. There is a separate optional upload for addenda related to test scores and academic performance.”
For more on how to write a Why X essay, see my Why X Essay Guide.
For more on how to write a diversity or perspective statement, see my Diversity Statement Examples and Diversity Statement Guide.
For more on making all of these essays work together, see my Cohesive Narrative Guide.
Addenda and Character & Fitness Resources
I'll be publishing a guide to addenda and character and fitness.
3. Wake Forest Law Resume Requirements
Wake requires a resume. Keep the chronology clear and emphasize substantive responsibilities, service, and results.
For more on preparing your resume, see my Resume Examples and Resume Guide.
4. Wake Forest Law Letters of Recommendation
Wake requires one letter of recommendation and accepts up to three. Its admissions guidance favors academic recommenders for current or recent students; applicants farther from college can use appropriate professional references.
For more on recommendations, see my LOR Guide (Applicants) and LOR Guide (Writers).
5. Wake Forest Law Interview Process
An interview is not a required component of Wake's published standard JD application checklist.
6. Wake Forest Law Deadlines and Early Decision
Testing Policy
Wake accepts the LSAT or GRE and considers both when both are submitted. If you're considering the GRE, read my LSAT vs. GRE guide before deciding.
Application Dates and Fees
The published recurring regular-decision schedule is:
- Applications Open: September 1.
- Application Deadline: March 1.
- Completion Deadline: Required materials within 15 days after the deadline.
- Regular Decisions Begin: Around January, then rolling.
- Enrollment Deposits: April 1 and May 1, by 5 p.m. Eastern.
Binding Admission Options
Binding applications completed by November 1, December 1, February 1, or April 1 receive decisions by December 1, December 23, March 1, or May 5, respectively. Later completed binding files follow a separate timetable.
The 1894 Scholar route includes a specified scholarship, while Wake Forest Law Committed provides no scholarship consideration. Both require commitment to attend if admitted; admitted applicants must withdraw other applications within two calendar days. The choice is not simply between an early and a late answer.
Do not use the Committed route while relying on a future merit award to make attendance affordable. Regular Decision preserves your ability to compare schools and scholarship offers. Apply early in that process with a complete file, not a rushed set of essays.
For a full breakdown of early decision strategy, see Should You Apply Early Decision to Law School?
7. Wake Forest Law Scholarships and Financial Aid
Merit Scholarships
Wake's general admissions guidance provides automatic consideration for merit scholarships, with awards accompanying admission. The Committed binding option is an important exception: it excludes scholarship consideration.
1894 Scholar
This binding route guarantees $20,000 annually for up to six semesters, subject to good academic standing. Published LSAT/GPA or GRE eligibility criteria apply. Evaluate the remaining cost before committing.
Cost of Attendance
For 2026–27, tuition is $60,820 and direct tuition-and-fee costs total $62,124. The first-year estimated cost of attendance is $88,420. Required health insurance is additional unless waived with qualifying coverage; the university plan costs $3,210. A separate $422 wellness fee can be waived each semester.
For more on scholarship strategy, see How to Negotiate Law School Scholarships.
8. Wake Forest Law Joint Degrees
Wake lists these joint-degree options:
- JD/MBA with the School of Business, using shared credits and a coordinated schedule.
- JD/MDiv with the School of Divinity, a five-year program combining law and religious leadership.
- JD/MHA with the School of Professional Studies, incorporating online health-administration courses over five semesters beginning after the first law-school year; the schedule can extend beyond the JD.
Apply to and gain admission from both participating schools, and notify the law school before undertaking the arrangement.
9. Wake Forest Law Employment Outcomes (Class of 2025)
Wake Forest Class of 2025 employment outcomes (reported to the ABA, measured 10 months after graduation):
- Full-time, long-term bar-passage-required employment (ABA): 89.2%
- BigLaw (firms with 101+ attorneys): 39.9%
- Federal clerkships: 4.4%
- Public service (including government): 11.4%
North Carolina was the leading destination, followed by Florida and New York. Large firms employed a substantial share of the class. Compare Wake's net cost with its access to the North Carolina employers you would pursue.
10. Wake Forest Law Areas of Study and Specializations
Appellate Advocacy: The Appellate Advocacy Clinic connects legal writing to live appeals in state and federal courts. Students interested in research-intensive advocacy can build toward it through prerequisite coursework and moot court. This is a specific training path, not simply a general litigation label.
Health Justice: The Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic brings students together with healthcare professionals to address legal problems affecting low-income patients. The JD/MHA provides a different, organizational angle.
Intellectual Property and Business: The Intellectual Property Law Clinic emphasizes transactional counseling, trademarks, and copyright. The Wake Forest Journal of Business and Intellectual Property Law adds an editorial outlet. These opportunities fit applicants interested in helping creators and businesses manage legal rights.
Environmental Law and Policy: The Environmental Law and Policy Clinic combines client work, policy projects, and heirs' property issues. Its approach includes nonlitigation advocacy. That matters for applicants interested in how land ownership, community stability, and environmental decisions intersect.
Commercial Litigation: The North Carolina Business Court maintains a courtroom in Worrell Professional Center, with many hearings open to observers. Watching complex corporate and commercial disputes can make classroom concepts tangible.
11. Wake Forest Law Clinics and Experiential Learning
Wake's seven clinics require instructor permission. Their work ranges from appellate briefs to business counseling, so choose based on the tasks you want to learn.
- Appellate Advocacy Clinic: Third-year students work in small teams on an appeal over the academic year. They review the trial record, identify issues, research, and prepare briefs; oral argument may be possible when the court permits it. The work includes civil and criminal matters.
- Environmental Law and Policy Clinic: Students counsel clients and produce research and policy work for nonprofit and government partners. Each student works on an heirs' property matter and a policy project, connecting legal analysis to land retention, environmental justice, and community needs.
- Innocence and Justice Clinic: Students investigate potential wrongful convictions through case files, records, prison visits, and witness work. Projects can involve DNA issues and postconviction pleadings, including habeas or clemency work. Investigation comes before the assumption that a case has an available legal remedy.
- Intellectual Property Law Clinic: Student teams assist entrepreneurs, small businesses, and nonprofits with trademark clearance, registration, copyright, licensing, and related contracts. They conduct client interviews and prepare filings and policy documents. This is transactional IP practice.
- Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic: Students work with low-income patient-clients and healthcare providers on health-harming legal problems. Matters can involve unsafe housing, threatened eviction, or benefit denials. Students connect direct representation to a broader plan for addressing the client's practical needs.
- Trade and Development Clinic: Students advise social enterprises and development organizations in the United States and Latin America. Business, corporate, securities, and other transactional questions provide the setting for cross-cultural counseling and maintaining a professional client relationship.
- Veterans Legal Clinic: Students assist low-income former service members with military-record corrections and VA advocacy. They interview clients, investigate records, prepare written advocacy, and may collaborate with medical professionals. Military affiliation is not required to participate.
Pro Bono and Experiential Learning
General and litigation externships place students with supervised legal employers; the DC Summer Judicial Externship is a separate option. The Pro Bono Project allows first-semester participation in attorney-supervised work such as expungements, wills, housing, and tax assistance.
12. Wake Forest Law Notable Faculty and Journals
Faculty
- Allyson E. Gold, Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Experiential Learning, directs the Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic. Her scholarship examines housing, property, and health equity; she received the ABA's John J. Curtin Justice Fund Award.
- Zaneta Robinson, Clinical Professor of Law and founding director of the Intellectual Property Law Clinic, is a North Carolina board-certified trademark specialist. Her scholarship connects trademark law with language and global culture.
- Steve Virgil, Clinical Professor of Law, directs the Trade and Development Clinic. His work focuses on poverty, social enterprise, and cooperative business models; his distinctions include a Fulbright Fellowship and Wake's Joseph Branch teaching award.
- John Korzen, Associate Professor of Legal Writing and Appellate Advocacy Clinic director, is a board-certified appellate specialist who has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. His work gives students direct exposure to appellate practice.
Journals
- Wake Forest Law Review: Analysis of current legal problems, with past issues covering human trafficking, mass incarceration, and legal education reform.
- Wake Forest Journal of Business and Intellectual Property Law: Articles on business law and intellectual property, with a focus on their intersection.
- Wake Forest Journal of Law & Policy: Analysis of legal issues involving public and social policy.
Moot court and trial teams provide additional advocacy opportunities.
13. Wake Forest Law Culture and Student Life
Wake combines a university-campus setting with a class drawn heavily from outside North Carolina. The Class of 2029 includes students from 38 states plus Washington, DC, and 78% are from out of state. Sixty percent have at least a year of postcollege experience.
Pro Humanitate appears in actual student activities, including Foundations Week's Day of Service and first-semester pro bono participation. Ask current students how they balance that work with classes and recruiting. The useful question is how the community operates, not whether a brochure calls it close-knit.
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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 Wake Forest 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.
