Registration and Enrollment Management

Accessing your class list

  • To access your class list, login to LawNet using your UNI
  • Click on “Faculty Services” then on “See Class List”
  • Click “Select” to view your options.  You have the option to view your list with or without photos
  • Once the page has loaded, select “File” and “Print” to print the class list

Seating charts

If a seating chart is available for the classroom you will be teaching in, you have the option to create an electronic seating chart in LawNet. Faculty Coordinators can assist with managing and printing seating charts.

If you are using seating charts, let your students know when the seating chart will be open for signup. Also, it is important to remember to reserve seats for students with disabilities and notetakers.

Names and Pronunciations

  • Class lists with pictures and student biographical information are available on LawNet. LawNet also contains the names preferred by your students (if different than the name in the class list), audio of the name pronunciation, and students’ preferred pronouns (if one is indicated). You can access the audio pronunciations by viewing your class list in Album View, or by using the Pronunciation Slideshow feature, in LawNet.
  • Students will also have placards to facilitate name memorization. In our conversations, students express appreciation for professors’ efforts to learn and pronounce their names. You can utilize the "Pronunciation Slideshow" in LawNet to assist with learning name pronunciation. Students also find the placards useful as they learn their classmates’ names.

Explanation

  • Perhaps counterintuitively, the existence of a wait list does not necessarily mean that a class is oversubscribed. Under the CLS registration system, students will appear on your wait list if they are registered for a conflicting class or if they are registered for more than the maximum number of credit hours.
     
  • Such students enjoy the option to drop other those classes and take yours instead, in order of their priority on the waitlist, if they do so within the first week of class.  Any students with lower registration priority will also be put on a wait list until students with higher priority have resolved their conflicts, even if the lower-ranked students have no conflicts themselves.  
     
  • However, it is extremely unlikely that every higher-ranking student will exercise their option to take your class [and in addition some students who are currently registered for the class may decide to drop it, in order to take up some other option they are simultaneously being offered in another class]. Thus, it is virtually certain that at least some lower-ranking students will get into the class if they stick it out for the first week.
     

Default Order of Priority

By default, students on a wait list will be automatically offered the opportunity to add your course in the order that they registered for it, and your class list will be updated in real time throughout the Add/Drop period. If you wish, however, you may offer priority in registration to students who are present in class during the Add/Drop period. But if you choose this option you should notify the class in your course description or by email, so that students shopping for classes will have fair notice of your policy.
 

Choosing a different order of priority

  • If you wish to register students in a different order from the default wait list or on any other basis, please contact Dean Andrea Saavedra at [email protected]. 
  • If you have specific rules for admittance to your class from the waitlist, please notify students and let Andrea Saavedra know if your waitlist should be frozen. 

 

You may be approached by students currently enrolled in other graduate schools at Columbia University wishing to enroll in your class. Full-time graduate students are permitted to do so with your permission, on a space available basis. If you determine that the student may enroll in your class, please provide them written permission and refer them to the cross-registration website for further instructions.

You may also be approached by a Columbia Law School visiting scholar requesting permission to attend your course. Again, this is allowed at Columbia Law School with your permission and on a space available basis. There is no formal process of approval for this process, nor would the visiting scholar appear on your roster or receive a grade. 

Columbia Law School does NOT permit any student to audit a class. However, if there is space in your classroom you may, at your own discretion, permit a student or other guest to sit in your class during one or more class sessions.

Changes in Your Class List 

  • You should expect changes to your class list during the Add/Drop period when students are allowed to make changes in their academic program. Students will be able to add and drop both classes and waitlists during this time. Check the Academic Calendar for updates on the Fall 2024 Add/Drop period.

Instructor Opt-Out

  • Allowing students the flexibility to change their schedule in the first week of class enables them to make better use of academic counseling and their summer job experience, and is likely to provide you with a better match of students.  However, if due to the specific nature of your course it is very important to you to finalize your roster early [for example, in order to assign students to teams], you may choose to require your students to attend your initial classes. If you choose this option you should notify the class in your course description and please also notify Registration Services.

Limit on Late Additions

  • Students are expected to finalize their schedules by the end of the Change of Program period, so please do not tell students that they may join your class after this date.  If special accommodations need to be made, please contact Registration Services directly.

Limit on Late Withdrawals 

  • Withdrawal from a course after the close of the Change of Program period is allowed only with instructor permission and only up through the sixth week of the semester (October 14 in the Fall 2023 term and February 15 in the Spring 2024 term).  For such late withdrawals from a course, a grade of “W” (withdrew) will be entered into the student’s official transcript.

Digital Registration Forms

  • If you request that your students submit digital registration forms, you will receive an automated email notifying you when it has been submitted. Please find here a step-by-step guide to reviewing digital form submissions.