Attendance Policy for Students Enrolled in the Day Program

Students must attend at least 75% of the scheduled classes in order to receive credit for a course. Students may occasionally have legitimate reasons for missing classes (e.g., sickness). This is why the attendance policy permits students to miss up to 25% of class sessions without penalty. Students do not need to provide a reason for missing a class; we trust that students will not miss classes without an important reason for doing so.

Skills courses offered during the day program have a more stringent attendance requirement. Given the importance of class participation in skills courses, students are permitted no more than two absences from a skills class during the semester. Absences beyond two in a given semester in a skills course may lead to administrative withdrawal from the course. Some skills courses operating during summer or winter session, due to the compressed nature of these classes, do not permit any absences.

Unless expressly provided through an accommodation by the Office of Disability Support Services, students must be physically present in the classroom in order to be counted as present for a class. Per law school policy, students who arrive to class more than 10 minutes after the start time, or who leave class before the official end time will not be counted as present.

Students who are absent from class may access the class recording. Doing so will allow students to keep up with the class material covered but will not count for purposes of attendance. There will be no mechanism whereby students may participate in an in-person class remotely and receive credit for attendance unless they have been approved to be temporarily remote by the Office of Disability Support Services.

For both Fall and Spring semesters, students will be administratively withdrawn from a course if they exceed the below number of absences:

4 class sessions per week - 13 classes
3 class sessions per week - 9 classes
2 class sessions per week - 6 classes
1 class session per week - 3 classes
Skill course - 2 classes

Note: For summer session doctrinal courses, students will be administratively withdrawn from a course if they exceed 3 class absences. For summer and winter session compressed schedule courses no absences are permitted. .

Individual faculty members are free to adopt an alternate procedure for monitoring attendance, provided that it is at least as restrictive of the school's policy. Each faculty member shall announce his/her policy regarding attendance at the first two or three class sessions of each semester. Professors may, in their sole discretion, refuse to allow a student to sign an attendance sheet, or request that a signature be voided if the student is not in attendance for a sufficient portion of the class.

Students are responsible for monitoring their attendance and remaining aware of the number of absences they have in each class. Seton Hall Law offers an online tool (Compass) to help students keep track of their class attendance, but note that this tool does NOT SHOW ATTENDANCES TO DATE, but rather only to the date of the last recorded attendance (about 1 to 2 weeks behind)..

On occasion, students may request that attendance records be changed to reflect that they were present in class on a given day, as they may have missed or forgotten to sign the attendance sheet. Students requesting attendance record changes must present sufficient evidence supporting their claim to their faculty member.

Signing an attendance sheet on behalf of another student constitutes a violation of the Code of Student Conduct. Such violations will be reported to the Associate Dean.

Attendance Policy for Students Enrolled in the Weekend Program/Hybrid and Online Courses

Students are expected to attend all scheduled classes in person. Unless expressly provided through an accommodation by the Office of Disability Support Services, students must be physically present in the classroom in order to be counted as present for a class. Per law school policy, students who arrive to class more than 10 minutes after the start time, or who leave class before the official end time will not be counted as present.

Absences may be only excused by the Weekend Director or the Associate Dean with documentation of exigent or unforeseen circumstances. Professors cannot excuse absences. Unexcused absences may result in a grade penalty as set by the instructor. Students missing more than 25% of the scheduled classes, for any reason (excused or unexcused) will be administratively withdrawn.

Skills courses offered in the weekend program have a more stringent attendance requirement. Given the importance of class participation in skills courses, typically students are permitted no absences for a weekend skill class during the semester unless the professor has announced otherwise.

Students must participate in the online/distance portion of hybrid courses in order to receive credit for attendance in the course. If a student fails to participate in the online/distance assignments for three modules, he or she will be withdrawn from the course. For purposes of this policy, a module consists of the online/distance activities accompanying one class session.

For fully online courses, attendance consists entirely of participation in the online assignments and activities. In semester-long courses, failure to participate in the online assignments and activities for three weeks will result in the student being withdrawn from the course. In courses that run for less than a full semester, failure to participate in the online assignments for 25% of the course (e.g., two weeks for an eight-week course) will result in the student being withdrawn from the course.

Appeals

Appeals of administrative withdrawals are granted in very limited circumstances at the sole discretion of the Associate Dean and Dean of Students.

Have questions regarding the attendance policy?
Contact Law Enrollment Services at [email protected] or 973-642-8502.

Need help with our online attendance tool, Compass?
Contact Law Help Desk at [email protected] or 973-642-8017.