Law Schools in Missouri + LSAT Prep (2026 Guide)

There are four ABA-accredited law schools in Missouri: Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Missouri, Saint Louis University, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Their median LSATs span 156 to 175 across the 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosures, so a competitive Missouri applicant realistically targets a score somewhere inside that unusually wide band.

By Ali Unar, Georgetown Law, Founder of Lovare Institut. Ali Unar is a Georgetown Law student and the founder of Lovare Institut, an admissions and LSAT-prep practice built on primary-source law school data. Verified August 2026. Every admissions figure on this Missouri guide comes from each school's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure for the fall 2025 entering class, every bar-exam detail from the National Conference of Bar Examiners, and the in-state retention figures from the ABA employment data for the Class of 2024.

What law schools are in Missouri?

Missouri has four ABA-accredited law schools, and they sit at strikingly different points on the selectivity scale. According to the 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosures, Washington University in St. Louis anchors the top of the Missouri market with a 175 median LSAT, while the University of Missouri-Kansas City sits at the accessible end with a 156 median. Between those two, the University of Missouri and Saint Louis University fill out a range that gives Missouri applicants genuine choice across price and academic profile. That spread is what makes Missouri interesting for planning: one state holds a school near the very top of the LSAT scale and three others that admit solidly on scores in the mid-150s to low-160s. The table collects the core numbers for every Missouri law school.

SchoolMedian LSATAcceptance rateFull-time tuitionWashington University in St. Louis17519.0%$72,792University of Missouri16142.0%$25,774Saint Louis University15756.4%$55,260University of Missouri-Kansas City15645.9%$25,930

Each school's median LSAT, acceptance rate, and full-time tuition in the table above is taken from that school's own 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure for the fall 2025 entering class. Read across the rows and the structure of legal education in Missouri comes into focus. Washington University in St. Louis is a national private school whose 175 median and 19.0 percent acceptance rate place it in a different tier from the rest of the state, and its $72,792 full-time tuition reflects that national positioning. The University of Missouri, the state flagship's law school in Columbia, pairs a 161 median with a public-school full-time tuition of $25,774. Saint Louis University, a private Jesuit school, posts a 157 median with the state's highest acceptance rate at 56.4 percent and a $55,260 full-time tuition. The University of Missouri-Kansas City, the flagship system's urban campus, sits at a 156 median, a 45.9 percent acceptance rate, and $25,930 in full-time tuition. In short, Missouri offers one elite national option and three regional schools, two of them public and comparatively affordable.

What LSAT and GPA do you need for law school in Missouri?

Across Missouri the median LSATs run from 156 to 175, per the 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosures, so there is no single number that answers the question for the whole state. What a score opens depends entirely on which Missouri school you are aiming at, and the four schools are spread far enough apart that almost every serious applicant has at least one realistic target in Missouri.

Start at the top. Washington University in St. Louis reports a 175 median LSAT in its 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, which is near the ceiling of the 120 to 180 LSAT scale and by a wide margin the highest median of any Missouri law school. A score at or above 175 makes an applicant competitive at Washington University in St. Louis; a score in the high 160s or low 170s is below its median but, given the way its band is shaped, still inside the range the school admits from. The University of Missouri comes next at a 161 median, so a score at or above 161 is competitive for the state flagship in Columbia, and a mid-150s score is where the more accessible Missouri schools become the realistic targets. Saint Louis University sits at a 157 median and the University of Missouri-Kansas City at a 156 median, which means a score in the mid-150s is genuinely competitive at two of Missouri's four law schools.

The acceptance rates fill in the rest of the picture. Saint Louis University admitted 56.4 percent of its applicants for fall 2025, the most forgiving admit rate in Missouri, followed by the University of Missouri-Kansas City at 45.9 percent and the University of Missouri at 42.0 percent, all per the 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosures. Washington University in St. Louis, at 19.0 percent, is the clear outlier and the only Missouri school that admits fewer than one applicant in four. The practical takeaway for a Missouri applicant is that a score in the mid-150s does not shut you out of the state: it is exactly the range in which Saint Louis University and the University of Missouri-Kansas City build their classes. A score in the low 160s adds the University of Missouri as a strong target, and only a score near the top of the scale puts Washington University in St. Louis within reach. On GPA, the 2025 disclosures do not publish a single statewide standard, but because two of the four Missouri schools read the file with a forgiving GPA band, as the next section shows, a strong LSAT can carry an application further in Missouri than a GPA-first read would suggest.

Which Missouri law schools are splitter friendly?

Three of Missouri's four law schools show spreads in the 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosures wide enough to call them splitter or reverse-splitter friendly, which is unusually favorable for applicants whose LSAT and GPA do not line up. A splitter is an applicant with a high LSAT and a lower GPA; a reverse splitter carries a high GPA with a lower LSAT. Missouri gives both types a path.

Washington University in St. Louis is the reverse-splitter-friendly school in Missouri. Its 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure shows an LSAT spread of 10 points from the 25th percentile up to the median, an exceptionally wide gap that tells you the school will read a file scoring well below its 175 median when the rest of the application, GPA included, is strong. In practice that means an applicant with a very high GPA and an LSAT in the mid-to-high 160s is not automatically out at Washington University in St. Louis the way a single-number reading of a 175 median might imply. Saint Louis University runs the other way: its 2025 disclosure shows a GPA 25th-to-median spread of 0.24, which makes it splitter friendly, so a strong LSAT can offset a GPA that sits below the school's median. The University of Missouri-Kansas City is splitter friendly as well, with a GPA 25th-to-median spread of 0.27 in its 2025 disclosure, the widest GPA band of the group and a clear signal that a high LSAT can carry a lower GPA at that Missouri school.

The University of Missouri is the one school in the state the 2025 disclosures do not flag as clearly splitter or reverse-splitter friendly, which suggests the flagship in Columbia weighs the two numbers in closer balance and rewards a file where the LSAT and GPA both land near its 161 median. Taken together, the Missouri picture is friendly to lopsided applicants: a high-LSAT, lower-GPA candidate has strong splitter targets in Saint Louis University and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, while a high-GPA, lower-LSAT candidate has a genuine reverse-splitter angle at Washington University in St. Louis.

What is the legal job market like in Missouri?

Missouri's legal market is anchored by two large metropolitan bars at opposite ends of the state, St. Louis in the east and Kansas City in the west, with the state capital of Jefferson City adding a government and regulatory layer in between. The in-state retention data in the ABA employment figures for the Class of 2024 shows how strongly Missouri schools feed that home market. The University of Missouri keeps 80 percent of its graduating class in Missouri, an unusually high in-state retention rate that marks the Columbia flagship as a school whose degree is built first and foremost for practice inside the state. Saint Louis University keeps 63 percent of its class in Missouri, a clear majority that reflects its deep roots in the St. Louis bar.

For the other two Missouri schools, the retention figures were not part of this data set, so this guide states that absence rather than estimating a number. Washington University in St. Louis, given its national 175 median and national tuition, is the Missouri school most likely to send graduates across state lines, but without the retention figure in hand this page will not put a percentage on it; readers who want that number should consult the school's ABA employment summary directly. The same honest limit applies to the University of Missouri-Kansas City. What the available data does establish is the shape of the market: the University of Missouri and Saint Louis University both retain most of their graduates in Missouri, and the state's legal employment concentrates in the St. Louis and Kansas City metros. This page does not quote salary figures for Missouri, because none were in the source data, and an invented salary would defeat the purpose of a primary-source guide.

The retention numbers carry a strategic lesson for anyone choosing a Missouri law school. When a school like the University of Missouri keeps 80 percent of its class in the state, per the ABA Class of 2024 employment data, its alumni network, its faculty connections, and its recruiting relationships are heavily concentrated in Missouri, which is a genuine advantage for a student who intends to build a career in St. Louis, Kansas City, or the Jefferson City government bar. The flip side is that a Missouri degree with high in-state retention is optimized for the Missouri market, so an applicant whose goal is to practice in another region should weigh that concentration honestly. Saint Louis University's 63 percent in-state retention points the same way toward the St. Louis market specifically. Because Missouri's two largest legal markets sit at opposite corners of the state, an applicant should also think about geography within Missouri: a school in Columbia, one in St. Louis, and one in Kansas City each plug into a different local bar, and proximity matters for internships and first jobs while you are still in school.

Does Missouri use the NextGen bar exam?

Yes. Missouri has adopted the NextGen bar exam, and according to the National Conference of Bar Examiners it administered its first NextGen exam in July 2026. Missouri was previously a Uniform Bar Exam jurisdiction and no longer administers the legacy UBE, so for candidates planning to sit in Missouri the NextGen format is already the live exam rather than a future change.

That timing matters for anyone choosing when to take the Missouri bar. Because Missouri moved early, the transition question that still hangs over many states is already settled here: a graduate sitting for the Missouri bar in 2026 or later is preparing for the NextGen exam, not the older Multistate Bar Examination and UBE structure. The National Conference of Bar Examiners has confirmed that the legacy UBE and the Multistate Bar Examination will end nationally after the February 2028 administration, so even the states still running the old format are on a firm countdown, and Missouri has simply arrived ahead of that deadline. The practical instruction for a Missouri applicant is to plan a bar-prep timeline around the NextGen exam and to confirm the current administration dates and any transitional details with the Missouri Board of Law Examiners, since bar authorities publish the exact sitting schedule each cycle. Bar-exam format is the one area of this guide sourced to the National Conference of Bar Examiners rather than the ABA disclosures, and the NextGen status for Missouri comes directly from that body.

Where can you take the LSAT in Missouri?

LSAT test centers are available in Missouri's major metropolitan areas, most prominently St. Louis and Kansas City, the state's two largest metros, along with mid-size hubs such as Springfield in the southwest and Columbia in the center of the state, home to the University of Missouri. Because the LSAT is now delivered in a mix of in-person test-center and remote-proctored formats, a Missouri test taker often has the option of sitting the exam at home under remote proctoring in addition to any physical center.

The specific list of open LSAT centers in Missouri changes from one administration to the next, so rather than print addresses that may be wrong by the time you register, this guide directs Missouri test takers to LSAC's official test-center list, which shows the current in-person and remote options for each administration. Register early in the cycle, because the most convenient Missouri seats, particularly in St. Louis and Kansas City during the busy fall testing months, tend to fill first. Confirming your Missouri test date and location on LSAC's official list well ahead of the deadline is the single most reliable way to secure the format and location you want.

Which Missouri universities feed law school?

Missouri's undergraduate feeders into law school are led by the state flagship, the University of Missouri in Columbia, whose large pre-law population is a natural pipeline into the state's law schools. The University of Missouri-Kansas City and the University of Missouri-St. Louis add urban feeder populations on the two ends of the state, and Missouri State University in Springfield and Truman State University in Kirksville, the state's public liberal-arts university, are both well-known sources of Missouri pre-law students. On the private side, Saint Louis University and Washington University in St. Louis educate strong undergraduate cohorts that regularly send applicants into law school.

These are named as common pre-law feeders based on their size and prominence within Missouri higher education, not on any specific placement statistic, because the source data for this guide does not include school-by-school undergraduate-origin counts for Missouri law students. What can be said plainly is that a Missouri resident has several strong in-state undergraduate paths toward a law degree, and that the flagship University of Missouri sits at the center of that pipeline. Any applicant weighing where to complete a pre-law undergraduate degree in Missouri should focus on grades, LSAT preparation, and a coherent application rather than assuming a particular Missouri university guarantees an admissions edge.

Frequently asked questions about law school in Missouri

How many law schools are in Missouri?

Missouri has four ABA-accredited law schools: Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Missouri in Columbia, Saint Louis University, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Their median LSATs range from 156 to 175 across the 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosures, which spans nearly the full practical spread of the LSAT scale and gives Missouri applicants one national option alongside three regional schools.

What is the easiest law school to get into in Missouri?

By admit rate, Saint Louis University is the most accessible law school in Missouri, admitting 56.4 percent of applicants for fall 2025 per its 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. By score, the University of Missouri-Kansas City has the lowest median LSAT in Missouri at 156. Both are realistic Missouri targets for an applicant scoring in the mid-150s, so a lower score does not close off the state.

What is the best law school in Missouri?

By the numbers, Washington University in St. Louis leads Missouri, with the state's highest median LSAT at 175 and its most selective acceptance rate at 19.0 percent in the 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. The University of Missouri is the top public option in Missouri at a 161 median. Best depends on cost and career goals, but Washington University in St. Louis is the state's clear national school.

What LSAT score do you need for law school in Missouri?

It depends on the Missouri school. The 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosures put the medians at 156 for the University of Missouri-Kansas City, 157 for Saint Louis University, 161 for the University of Missouri, and 175 for Washington University in St. Louis. A mid-150s score is competitive at two Missouri schools, a low-160s score adds the flagship, and a score near 175 is needed for Washington University in St. Louis.

How much does law school cost in Missouri?

Full-time tuition at Missouri law schools ranges widely. The 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosures list $25,774 at the University of Missouri and $25,930 at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, both public and comparatively affordable, against $55,260 at Saint Louis University and $72,792 at Washington University in St. Louis on the private side. Living costs and scholarships, which vary by student, are not included in these Missouri tuition figures.

Does Missouri use the NextGen bar exam?

Yes. According to the National Conference of Bar Examiners, Missouri adopted the NextGen bar exam and administered its first NextGen exam in July 2026. Missouri was formerly a Uniform Bar Exam state and no longer gives the legacy UBE. The older UBE and Multistate Bar Examination end nationally after the February 2028 administration, so Missouri candidates are already preparing for the NextGen format.

Can you take the bar in Missouri with an out-of-state degree?

As a general rule, a J.D. from any ABA-accredited law school qualifies a graduate to sit for the Missouri bar, so you do not have to attend a Missouri law school to become a Missouri lawyer. Missouri, like every state, sets its own character-and-fitness and admission requirements, so confirm the current rules with the Missouri Board of Law Examiners before you rely on them. This is general guidance, not a figure from the disclosures.

Which Missouri law school has the best bar passage?

School-by-school bar-passage rates for Missouri were not part of the source data for this guide, so this page does not rank the four Missouri schools on bar passage rather than invent numbers. Each Missouri law school publishes its own first-time and ultimate bar-passage rates in its ABA disclosures, so a reader comparing Missouri schools on that measure should consult each school's ABA bar-passage report directly.

Are there part-time or evening law programs in Missouri?

Program-format detail, including whether a given Missouri school offers a part-time or evening division, was not included in the source data for this guide, so this page states that absence rather than assert a schedule that might be wrong. An applicant who needs a part-time or evening option in Missouri should confirm current program formats directly with the University of Missouri, Saint Louis University, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and Washington University in St. Louis.

Where can you take the LSAT in Missouri?

LSAT test centers operate in Missouri's largest metros, chiefly St. Louis and Kansas City, along with Springfield and Columbia, and remote-proctored testing is also available to Missouri candidates from home. Because the open centers in Missouri change each administration, check LSAC's official test-center list for the current options and register early, since convenient Missouri seats in St. Louis and Kansas City fill quickly during peak testing months.

Which Missouri law schools are splitter friendly?

Per the 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosures, Washington University in St. Louis is reverse-splitter friendly in Missouri, with a 10-point LSAT 25th-to-median spread, favoring a high GPA with a lower LSAT. Saint Louis University and the University of Missouri-Kansas City are splitter friendly, with GPA 25th-to-median spreads of 0.24 and 0.27, favoring a high LSAT with a lower GPA. The University of Missouri is not flagged either way.

Is Washington University in St. Louis hard to get into?

Yes. Washington University in St. Louis is by far the most selective law school in Missouri, admitting 19.0 percent of applicants for fall 2025 with a 175 median LSAT, per its 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. That 175 median sits near the top of the LSAT scale and is 14 points above the next-highest Missouri school. It is the one Missouri law school that reads as a national admit rather than a regional one.

What is the cheapest law school in Missouri?

The two public options are the most affordable law schools in Missouri. The 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosures list full-time tuition of $25,774 at the University of Missouri in Columbia and $25,930 at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, making the flagship in Columbia the lowest-priced law school in Missouri by a narrow margin. Both cost roughly a third of the $72,792 sticker at Washington University in St. Louis.

Can you get into a Missouri law school with a 155 LSAT?

Yes. A 155 sits just below the medians at the two most accessible Missouri law schools, Saint Louis University at 157 and the University of Missouri-Kansas City at 156, per the 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosures. With Saint Louis University admitting 56.4 percent of applicants and the University of Missouri-Kansas City 45.9 percent, a 155 keeps a Missouri applicant inside a realistic admitted range, especially paired with a strong GPA.

Do you have to go to law school in Missouri to practice there?

No. You do not have to attend a Missouri law school to practice law in Missouri; a degree from any ABA-accredited law school, followed by passing the Missouri bar and meeting the state's admission requirements, lets you practice in Missouri. Attending an in-state school such as the University of Missouri can help with local connections, but it is not required. Confirm the current rules with the Missouri Board of Law Examiners.

Sources

Every figure on this Missouri guide is drawn from primary disclosures, listed here so readers can verify each one directly.

American Bar Association required disclosures, the 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Reports for each Missouri law school (medians, acceptance rates, and tuition): https://www.abarequireddisclosures.org/

National Conference of Bar Examiners, NextGen adoption and bar-exam status for Missouri: https://www.ncbex.org/

LSAC official LSAT test-center list for Missouri administrations: https://www.lsac.org/

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