Submitted by Brian Owsley
As a result of the pandemic, online became essential. Eleven law schools already applied for and received variances from the ABA for online education. Three more law schools are on the ABA’s August agenda for such variances.
St. Mary’s previously had an online masters in law program well-positioning them to start an online JD. There is a university-wide online training certification program that all law professors teaching in its online program have completed. All required courses are taken by the online students in a lock step fashion. The lock step nature builds cohesiveness among the group as a whole. Non-teaching components harder to get onboard than professors.
Mitchell Hamline inaugurated its hybrid online program in January 2015. All of Minnesota’s law schools are in the Twin Cities. The faculty developed its program to serve rural areas of Minnesota and Wisconsin, but students come from all around the nation. The hybrid approach includes a prep week at start of semester and Capstone week at the end and rest is online.
Schools need to develop policies that have plan that is based on sound educational approaches for best practices online. Legal education during the pandemic is likely not a good indication of online education. However, if students do well on bar then emergencies may obviate the need for best practices.
The ABA potentially will issue a report in next year regarding online programs. It will be a bit early for bar results to be a significant factor in this report. The Department of Education mandated different rules because of the for profits universities that had online programs that were viewed as providing poor education.
It is unlikely that an online law degree is going to make cheaper legal education. Nonetheless, it is anticipated that there will be an increase in law schools running online law degree programs.