W&L Law Welcomes Class of 2016
On Monday, August 26, Washington and Lee University School of Law enrolled 112 students in the J.D. Class of 2016.
In addition, one student from Afghanistan entered the School’s LL.M. program. Hussain Moin received the Friends of the Public Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan’s LLM Scholarship to support his legal education in the U.S. W&L previously hosted LL.M. students from Afghanistan under this program in 2009.
“Last year’s class was larger than we planned because of an unexpected yield from our pool of admitted students,” said Dean Nora Demleitner. “Recognizing the challenges new graduates are facing in a changing legal economy, we were determined this year to keep the class size closer to our historic norms.”
The median LSAT score for the entering class is 164, and the median undergraduate grade point average for the class is 3.51. The average age of class members is 24; students range in age from 21 to 34. The class is 47% female, and 21% of the class has identified as being a member of an ethnically diverse group.
The first-year students hail from 31 states and earned undergraduate degrees from 90 different institutions. The class includes six students who attended Washington and Lee for their undergraduate degree. Political Science remains one of the most popular undergraduate majors (22), with English (16), History (12) Economics (5), and International Studies (5) also well-represented.
64% of the class worked for a year or more before entering law school, including at top accounting firms, for political campaigns, in web technology and for the military. Volunteerism is a common interest of the class, with members participating in Relay for Life, Habitat for Humanity, and the Peace Corps, among many other volunteer activities.
A number of the members of the Class of 2016 have traveled extensively. Consistent with this international orientation, members of the class speak a variety of languages including Arabic, Cantonese, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Twi.
