Great expectations? Law schools, websites and “the student experience”

Abstract

As part of a wider project examining the ways in which law schools represent their law school and legal education their websites, this article looks particularly at projections of “the student experience” based on an examination of law school websites. As well as drawing on material provided by law schools, we locate this material in the literature relating to access, retention and student satisfaction as well as the more general higher education landscape. The material put out by law schools, comprising both factual and marketing material, is only one source of information about the law school alongside other material, both formal and informal. It does, however, have a particular authority in providing the “official” version of what the law school sees as its identity and offering to prospective students and other interested parties. The diversity of law schools is represented and celebrated on their websites and we conclude that it would be unfortunate if pressures to uniformity diminished the variety of ways law schools project themselves.