No. You will be asked to provide a “Law School Graduation Certificate” document with your bar application, but you will need to submit your bar application WITHOUT that document uploaded, because we certify all of the Law School’s graduates at once (the Office of Attorney Admissions sends us a list of graduates to certify before each exam, and they ask us to send that list back to them rather than sending individual graduation certificates for each graduate), and we do that after degrees are conferred after each term.
In order for us to certify your graduation, provided you meet all graduation requirements once grades have been submitted and finalized for the term preceding the exam you are applying for, you need to submit a Request for Colorado Bar Certification authorization form to the Law School's Registar's Office. (If you have trouble accessing the form, first sign out of any google accounts you are signed into, then click on the link, then enter your IdentiKey user name and password.) Also, note that we do not issue degrees, release diplomas, or certify the graduation of anyone who has a hold on their account (with the exception of a pre-registration hold for a future term), so be sure to resolve any myCUinfo holds as soon as you can as well.
All we need from you in order to forward your law school application and any related amendments to the Office of Attorney Admissions is this Request for Colorado Bar Certification authorization form. If you submitted an authorization form, and you made sure there are no holds on your myCUinfo account, you don’t need to do anything further (you asked and authorized us to do send in your law school application and any releated amendments when you submitted the form to us). We will forward all law school applications and related amendments to the Office of Attorney Admissions after we certify graduates. If you would like to view a copy of your originally submitted law school application in the meantime, you can do so through LSAC directly (there is an option for forgotten log-in and password if needed).
After your bar application has been submitted you will receive “Exam Status” emails from the Office of Attorney Admissions, and you should read all of those emails carefully, and respond appropriately. Some will say something like, “Your application to sit for Colorado Bar Examination has been reviewed. Your Exam Status has been set to Not Cleared to Sit for the Colorado Bar Exam” and will prompt you to log into your application account and review the status of several documents, including the Law School Graduation Certificate. You should be able to log in to your application portal and check the status of each document and verify that all show up as approved (assuming you submitted them and they were approved), with the exception of the Law School Graduation Certificate. The “Exam Status” emails should say in regards to those: "Note that depending upon your graduation date law school certificates may not yet have been issued by your law school. If you believe this document was submitted plesase verify with your law school that they have complted or are working on your reqquest." All you need to do to ensure that we are working on your request is to make sure you've given us an authorization form, as referenced above.
As soon as we certify graduates and send in their law school applications and amendments this summer (usually in late June or early July for July exams, and late January or early February for February exams), we will send out an email to let them know. It typically takes a couple of weeks for the Office of Attorney Admissions to review all documents and update applicants' exam status. If it has been a couple of weeks since we certified our graduates and your status has not changed, please contact us then.
In the meantime, if you submitted an authorization form to us, do not fret that your exam status is set to “Not Cleared” if the only thing noted as missing is the Law School Graduation Certificate or your law school application. NONE of our graduates will be cleared to sit until a few weeks before the exam. (Unfortunately, we can’t stop you from receiving the “not cleared to sit” notices from the Office of Attorney Admissions despite the special certification schedule and process we follow with them.) Again, please read ALL notices from the Office of Attorney Admissions carefully, continue checking the portal for updates, and follow up with the Office of Attorney Admissions directly through the portal if you receive a notice indicating you are missing anything besides the Law School Graduation Certificate or your law school application, or if you have any other questions about sitting for the exam. Questions sent through the portal are routed to your assigned Office of Attorney Admissions staff assistant, who is responsible for reviewing your file for completeness, character and fitness, and all other matters.