Distance Education in Law School: The Train Has Left the Station

Abstract

Law schools are getting left behind a national trend to add distance education to the higher education curriculum to the detriment of legal education and law students. Approximately half the article describes reasons for the growth in distance education in non-law academia, followed by reasons why distance education has not impacted law schools. The remainder of the article discusses three changes taking place that will bring distance education to law schools. Specifically, students expect more, students are seeking a less expensive alternative to the brick and mortar law school, and a student population with non-traditional goals and demographics is starting to enter law school. Excitement about distance education was expressed in several articles written just before the ABA Section on Legal Education & Admission to the Bar updated Standard 306 - Distance Education in 2002. However, very little has been written since, nor has distance education made a substantial impact on legal education since the new standard was accepted. The attached article is timely because the national growth in distance education suggests that the legal education community will be required to embrace the remote learning phenomena sooner rather than later due to growing consumer demand. The article is also relevant to those interested in the technology that makes distance learning not only possible but in some ways preferable to the lecture forum.