​​How to Get Into Duke Law

Admissions Straight Talk

Hear about possible changes to the law admissions process and how to get accepted [Show Summary] Mark Hill, Assistant Dean of Admissions at Duke Law, has worked in admissions for twenty years. In this episode, he shares his thoughts on how law schools will be affected by a potential recession and the possible elimination of a test requirement. Mark explores how applicants, especially those hoping to get accepted to Duke, should handle the shifting landscape. (Please note: Between the recording and publication of our interview, Mark Hill was promoted to Assistant Dean of Admissions at Duke Law. The recording has his old title; the show notes reflect his new title.) Interview with Mark Hill, Assistant Dean of Admissions at Duke Law [Show Notes] Thanks for joining me for the 481st episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Are you applying to law school this cycle? Are you planning ahead to apply to law school next year or later? Are you competitive at your target programs? Accepted's Law School Admissions Quiz can give you a quick reality check. Just go to accepted.com/law-quiz, complete the quiz, and you'll not only get an assessment but also tips on how to improve your qualifications and your chances of acceptance. And it's all free. I'm delighted to have an Admissions Straight Talk, Mark Hill, Assistant Dean of Admissions at Duke Law. Mark earned his bachelor's degree in Cultural Anthropology from Duke, and then later earned a master's in Higher Ed from Northwestern, where he also served as Assistant Director of Admissions. In 2002, joined Duke Law as an Admissions officer. Since 2013, he has served Duke Law as Senior Director/Assistant Dean of Admissions. Can you give us an overview of the more distinctive elements of the Duke Law School JD program? [2:21] The way that I think about it, there are two elements that characterize Duke. One is that we're among a handful of really top-tier national law schools with students who come from all over and have really great job prospects all across the country. Most of our grads don't stay in North Carolina. They're looking elsewhere. There's a handful of law schools like that. The other thing that makes us distinctive is that we have a relatively small class size. We're in a smaller city and so we’re a smaller school. We can really give individual attention to students. We help everybody who comes here craft their own course through the opportunities at Duke to get to where they want to end up. Because it's a smaller school and a smaller city, we really attract folks who are intending to be full-time law students. They're focused on engaging with one another and with their professors. I suppose it's not for everybody, but for people who want that kind of full-on focused experience, it can be really great. I've often mentioned a couple of distinctive dual degrees. We have two JD/LLM degrees that can be completed in the three years that it would take to do a JD so they don't add any additional time. You can get a really good concentration and an LLM focusing either on international and comparative law and all the spectrum of the things that means from public law to finance and corporate transactions. The other one focuses on law and entrepreneurship. Maybe you want to be a lawyer who works in the startup space or who works with venture capital. Maybe you have entrepreneurial ideas of your own. Maybe you just want to work for law firms that help provide legal services to those kinds of companies. The JD/LLM in law and entrepreneurship is a great thing there. Those are Duke-specific dual degrees. Of course, we have dual degrees with graduate programs like JD/MBA but I like to mention those as things that are particularly distinctive about Duke. This part of North Carolina has a lot of tech and startup activity because of Duke, UNC, and North Carolina State which are three major research universities in this area.