Clinical Credits
How Do Clinical Credits Work?
Students enrolled in a clinic receive clinical credit for their clinical enrollment and classroom credit for their clinical course component enrollment.
Many clinics have variable credits, which allows students to elect how many credits they would like to enroll for (generally from a range of 3 to 5 clinical credits).
Each clinical credit equals four hours of clinical work per week or 48 hours per semester.
| Terms available | Clinical Credits | Hours of work per week | Hours of work per semester |
| Fall, Spring | 2 clinical credits | 8 hours/week | 96 hours |
| Fall, Spring | 3 clinical credits | 12 hours/week | 144 hours |
| Fall, Spring | 4 clinical credits | 16 hours/week | 192 hours |
| Fall, Spring | 5 clinical credits | 20 hours/week | 240 hours |
Over winter term, students receive 2 clinical credits. Students must be in residence working full-time at their placements, from the first day of winter term through the last day of winter term.
Changing Clinical Credits
Students may take up to 16 clinical credits throughout their time at HLS.
Students may adjust their clinical credits (if applicable) through Helios up until the clinic’s add/drop deadline. To learn how, please read the instructions on the Change Clinical Credits section of our website.
Deadlines
After a clinics add/drop deadline, students can request a change to their clinical credits by emailing Maggie Bay (mbay@law.harvard.edu), up until the following dates:
Fall 2021 – October 8, 2021
Spring 2022 – February 18, 2022
After the above dates, all clinical credit changes must be requested by your direct clinical supervisor and submitted for review to mbay@law.harvard.edu.
Winter-Spring clinical students may adjust their spring clinical credits up until the above spring clinical credit change deadline.