« Courts - "Justices Agree to Consider DNA Case" | Main | Law - "As Building Projects Collapse, Suits Pile Up" »
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Law - "Online Law Grads: Older, No Slackers"
Karen Sloan of The National Law Journal has a long and interesting story today on online law schools. A sample:
Online schools still have something to prove when it comes to the performance of their graduates on standardized law exams.Of the approximately 525 students who have graduated from Concord with juris doctor degrees since the school opened, slightly more than 200 have been admitted to the California Bar, said Skibbe. Some graduates opt not to sit for the bar, while others don't pass.
Concord, generally, has the highest bar passage rates among online and correspondence law schools, but it still has a significantly lower passage rate than ABA-accredited schools overall. For example, the passage rate for first-time test takers at ABA-accredited schools in California was 62 percent for the February bar. Concord had a first-time pass rate of 38 percent. Skibbe said Concord's overall pass rate is 50 percent.
The statistics for the baby bar also show room for improvement. Correspondence and online law school students had a 22 percent overall pass rate last October.
Like it or not, online law schools are here to stay. That's the opinion of Concord Dean Barry Currier, who said it's just a matter of time before distance-education law schools are eligible for ABA accreditation.
Online and correspondence law schools don't meet current ABA-accreditation standards. That's because ABA standards measure factors such as libraries, facilities, clinical experience and interaction between students and professors, Askew said. It's virtually impossible to measure those elements when it comes to online schools, thus the standards would have to be dramatically modified to cover those programs.
Online coursework is slowly becoming more accepted in the law school community. The ABA modified its accreditation standards in 2003 to allow students to take 12 of the 90 credit courses required for a juris doctor degree online.
That limit could increase in the future, but that discussion hasn't taken place, Askew said.
"Distance education is growing dramatically at the graduate level. Who knows what will happen five years from now?" he said.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 4, 2008 09:24 AM
Posted to General Law Related