What typing speed do you need for law school?

I found no law school admissions rule that sets a typing speed. What matters is whether you can finish a timed exam with time left to think. Participants in a large online typing test averaged 51.56 words per minute ¹. At that pace a finished 1,000-word answer takes about 19.4 minutes ². A typist near that average is unlikely to run out of time on typing alone, but a slow typist taking a laptop exam may.

I found no law school that sets a typing speed for admission, so the exam clock is the real test

I searched for a minimum typing speed in law school admissions and found none. In my searches, typing speed came up in discussions of grading, not in admission rules. Student forums argue about whether typing speed changes exam grades, but those posts are anecdotes, not school policy. Check the admissions page of each school you apply to, because a rule published there would not show up in a general search.

An average typist can finish a 1,000-word answer in about 19 minutes

The 51.56 words per minute figure ¹ comes from a large online typing test, which measured speed on a set of sentences rather than on composed writing. It is a useful benchmark, not a law school standard. The 19.4-minute figure ² is simple arithmetic: 1,000 words divided by 51.56 words per minute. Typing is only one part of an exam answer, because you also read the question, plan the argument and check the result. A speed near the average leaves room for that work. A speed well below it means the keyboard takes time that you need for thinking. Compare your own timed result with that average. See how typing speed is measured for how to count your words per minute and your net accuracy.

Typing speed matters more on a computer exam, and the effect depends on how used you are to it

Research from the 1990s compared writing on paper with writing on a computer. For students who were accustomed to writing on a computer, responses written on computer scored substantially higher than responses written by hand ³. The follow-up study found the reverse for slow keyboarders: students whose keyboarding speed was half a standard deviation below the mean did substantially worse when the tests were on computer ⁴. These studies tested schoolchildren on test items, not law exams, and the results were mixed across subjects. They show that a keyboard can help or hurt, depending on how practiced the typist is. If you type slowly and rarely write on a computer, a laptop exam is where speed costs you most.

It depends: some law exams run on a locked-down laptop, and a laptop can fail

Some law schools run exams on a laptop with exam software that restricts what the computer can do. Seton Hall Law says its Examplify software locks out access to files, programs and the Internet ⁵. A dictation tool you run outside that software is unlikely to work during the exam, so do not plan around speech input unless your school gives written permission. The same policy says that if a laptop fails, the student must finish the exam by hand, and no extra time is allowed for computer problems ⁶. Other schools set their own rules, so ask which system you will use and what happens if it fails.

The same computer format applies after law school. The State Bar of California says the NextGen Uniform Bar Exam is a computer-based test ⁷. Typing speed will matter again at that stage, and that exam is separate from your law school work.

It depends: a disability can change what speed you need

If typing is slow or painful because of a disability, a school may allow speech input as an accommodation. In a 1995 study of 29 university students with learning disabilities, essays written with a speech recognition system received significantly higher holistic scores than essays written without assistance ⁸. That is one small study, so it shows the kind of help that can work, not a guaranteed result. The school's disability office decides which accommodations to allow, so ask before the exam period, not on the day.

What to do before your first law school exam

1. Ask the school which system you will use, whether the exam is on a laptop or handwritten, whether speech input is allowed, and what the fallback is when a laptop fails.
2. Time a typing test at the start of term, and compare your result with the average above. Keep your net speed in view, not only your gross speed.
3. Practice in the exam software with the settings the school uses, so the first time you type in it is not during the exam.
4. Practice a timed handwritten answer once or twice, so the fallback is usable if you need it.
5. Use speech for drafts at home, then edit by hand. The guide on speech to text for students explains the steps, and whether dictation helps students write better covers what the evidence shows.
6. Check the rules for any tool before using it on an assignment. The question on whether speech to text counts as cheating covers the common cases.

For the wider picture of typing requirements, see the guide to typing speed for jobs and the question on the minimum typing speed for office jobs. Our overview of dictation at work covers the other places where speech input is used.