Southwestern Law School: admission requirements and 509 data

What the 2025 numbers say about Southwestern Law School

Southwestern Law School received 3,584 completed applications for the 2025 entering class and made 1,307 offers of admission, an acceptance rate of 36.5%. 458 of those admitted enrolled, a yield of 35.0%. Counting deferred admits and part-time entrants, the first-year class came to 459 students: 383 full time and 76 part time. Total JD enrollment across all years is 1,108.

Enrolled students posted a median LSAT of 157, with a 25th percentile of 154 and a 75th of 160. That is 2 points below the 159 median across the 196 ABA-approved schools in this data. It ranks 109 of 196 on LSAT median. Undergraduate GPA ran 3.23 at the 25th percentile, 3.51 at the median and 3.72 at the 75th.

Full-time tuition is $63,160 a year at a single rate for residents and non-residents. The school's own living-expense estimate for a single student off campus is $38,033. Tuition, fees and that living estimate add up to $101,193 for one year, or $303,579 across three, before any grant. 722 JD students hold a grant or scholarship, 72% of the student body, and the median full-time award is $29,166. 29 awards cover full tuition or more. The school reports conditional scholarships: 295 entering students held one and 142 had it reduced or eliminated.

Of the graduating class that sat a bar exam for the first time, 187 of 288 passed, a rate of 64.93%. The weighted average across the jurisdictions where those graduates sat was 77.76%, so the school ran 12.83 points behind the jurisdictions it feeds. Ten months after graduation, 233 of 290 graduates (80.3%) held a job requiring bar admission. 16 joined law firms of 251 lawyers or more (5.5% of the class), of whom 12 went to firms of 501 or more. 1 took federal clerkships. The largest single destination was California with 243 graduates, followed by Pennsylvania with 3.

Southwestern Law School has been approved by the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education since 1970. It is a private school based in Los Angeles, CA. 51 first-year students left for academic reasons, 12.0% of the class.

The full 509 record

California has 17 ABA-approved law schools. The California guide compares them on LSAT median, cost and bar passage, and covers the state's admission rules.

Data: ABA Standard 509 Information Report (2025), published for consumer disclosure, retrieved from the ABA Required Disclosures portal on 2026-09-01. Bar passage and employment figures come from the same portal's Bar Passage Outcomes and Employment Summary reports for the class of 2024. Figures describe the 2025 to 2026 reporting cycle for Southwestern Law School and are restated in our own structure; no ABA document or file is reproduced here. Verify anything decision-critical with the school.

Related reading: LSAT score guide, GPA benchmarks, law school cost and ROI, application timeline, all 196 ABA-approved schools, and the Yale profile for the top of the range.