Northwestern California University Law School online was founded in 1982 in order to provide high quality, affordable legal education to individuals who otherwise would not be able to attend law school due to obstacles such as family commitments or financial situations.
Its program was recently granted a full five-year renewal as an approved degree granting institution by the California Department of Education and the State Bar of California. The academic programs are offered completely online, combining Internet and recorded teaching tools, and there are no residency requirements. It is the responsibility of the student to ensure the eligibility requirements are met in order to qualify to take the Bar examination, which includes four years of law study.
Northwestern California University Law School issues three different degrees. These are the Bachelor of Science in Law (B.S.L.), the Juris Doctor (J.D.), and certificate and non-certificate programs in paralegal study.
In order to enter as a ‘bar eligible’ student and receive the B.S.L. which is awarded following completion of the first-half of the school’s J.D. program, a student needs to have first obtained 60 credits of undergraduate work or satisfactorily passed three to five sections of the College Level Examination Program (CLEP). The minimum gradepoint average is 2.0 in order to receive the B.S.L. Coursework includes traditional casebooks, written online materials such as guidebooks, open-book midterm examinations and proctored final exams.
It is the student’s responsibility to find a proctor who is either a judge, lawyer or school official. Northwestern California University will send the final to be administered to the proctor who will supervise the testing and then return the materials to the school for grading. The J.D. will be conferred upon completion of Parts I through IV of the curriculum and the study methods remain the same for the J.D. program as they were for the B.S.L.
The paralegal program is 33 units of credit and the instructional methods are the same as the law school programs. Areas of study include family law and estate planning and there are educational prerequisites for admission if a certificate is desired upon completion. Students must have completed four years of undergraduate education, two years of college and two years of work experience, or a high school diploma with training and work experience in clerical skills including typing.
In order to be considered for admission to Northwestern California University Law School online, which functions on a rolling admissions schedule, it is necessary to submit an application along with $25 dollars to the Sacramento, CA admissions office. The admission application includes general personal background information, academic background including CLEP scores if utilizing as substitution for college credit, and how you learned about the educational opportunities offered by the school. There is the option to pay the tuition annually or monthly. In addition to tuition there are material fees, the application fee and a graduation fee. The application also includes full disclosure in regards to the California State Bar requirements for continuation of study following administration of the First-Year Law Students’ Examination and how the studies completed at a correspondence school in California may not allow a student to practice law in states other than California.
