FAQ - Who is my Legal Studies Advisor?
What sorts of things does she do?
Tami Paluca is the Legal Studies advisor for all our majors. Call her to make an appointment; her office is in Room 103, Gordon Hall and she can be reached at 413-545-9698. Her email is tlpaluca@legal.umass.edu.
Go to her if you need:
- Confirmation that you've completed your Legal Studies requirements, and to affirm you're on track
- To get advice with your schedule
- To remove an advisor's hold due to a credit deficiency
- To request any course exceptions or substitutions (double majors doing Junior Writing in their other major, law-related substitutions, taking courses elsewhere etc.)
- Help when you're feeling bewildered and stressed
- Help with Spire and course registration
Please print out a copy of your degree audit and bring it with you to any appointment you have with Tami -- often the system is painfully slow during appointments and this will ensure the information needed for productive advising is at hand.
Be aware of your transcript and degree audit. Regularly print out a hard copy for yourself, and hold on to it. As you take courses, the computer sometimes reshuffles the courses that are plugged into different requirements and this can require correcting. Don't assume the information is static.
Make sure you understand what's on your degree audit and why it's there. Follow up with questions when you're uncertain about something, so you have time to have mistakes fixed. Three places clear you for graduation requirements: 1) your major (or majors if you have more than one); 2) the college your major falls under (potentially more than one for double majors), and 3) the Registrar's office. Your degree audit should make it clear who to seek out.
- Go to Tami with questions about Legal Studies
- See Arts & Sciences advising about the the Global Education requirement.
- Go to the Registrar's with questions about General Education and transfer courses.
The Arts & Sciences Advising Center in E-20 Machmer has advisors on staff as well, if you're still looking for information and advising. In addition to the Arts & Sciences Advising page there is a UMass Advising List.

