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Friday, June 26, 2009

Law - More on "Concord Online Law School Places Second in National Moot Court Competition"

This ILB entry from June 22nd reported that "The moot court team of Concord Law School of Kaplan University won second place in the Fourth Annual Constance Baker Motley National Moot Court Competition in Constitutional Law on Saturday, June 20." One of the two Concord Law School competitors was Marjorie Daily from Indiana.

But can you take the bar with a degree from a virtual law school? Other than in California? Perhaps yes, according to these stories this week.

Robert J. Ambrogi reports at Legal Blog Watch in an entry that begins:

Remember Ross E. Mitchell? He is the graduate of the wholly online Concord Law School who made history last November by becoming the first graduate of an online, unaccredited law school to win permission to take the bar exam in a state outside California. Well, now he has made history again.

As we reported in November, when Mitchell first applied to take the Massachusetts exam, he was turned down, based on the state's rule that applicants be graduates of law schools accredited by the American Bar Association. He sued the state Board of Bar Examiners, contending that the rule was unconstitutional as applied to him or, alternatively, seeking waiver of the rule in his case. In a decision issued on Nov. 20, Mitchell v. Board of Bar Examiners, the state Supreme Judicial Court held that Mitchell was entitled to a waiver of the rule, clearing the way for him to take the bar exam.

Mitchell took the exam and passed it. That means, as The National Law Journal and the Boston Herald report this week, that the 57-year-old is now the first online law school graduate to be admitted to the Massachusetts bar. He was already admitted in California, which is the only state that officially permits Concord graduates to apply for admission to the bar.

From a story by Sheri Qualters of The National Law Journal:
An online law school graduate who sued the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts for the opportunity to take that state's bar examination is now a newly minted Massachusetts lawyer.

The Boston Herald first reported that Ross E. Mitchell is the first Massachusetts lawyer with an exclusively online legal education. Mitchell was sworn in on June 22 and has 90 days to register with the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers, according to the court.

Mitchell, a Newton, Mass.-based independent computer consultant, said he views his legal credentials as "another tool in his consulting arsenal."

"I don't plan open to hang out a shingle per se," Mitchell said. "What I see myself doing is pretty much making myself available to take on interesting projects you need to be a lawyer to do."

Last November, Mitchell won his case against the state's Board of Bar Examiners, which denied his bid to bypass a requirement that U.S.-trained applicants be graduates of an American Bar Association-accredited law school. Mitchell v. Board of Bar Examiners, No. SJC-10157 (Mass.). The court allowed Mitchell to sit for the bar because the ABA is mulling changes to its accreditation standards.

Last September, the ABA launched a comprehensive review of its standards for the approval of law schools. Currently, ABA-approved schools can only allow graduates to take up to 12 credit hours of classes online.

Mitchell, who was a pro se litigant in his Supreme Judicial Court case, graduated from Concord Law School. Mitchell has also passed the California general bar examination and the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination, and he was admitted to practice before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit.

In the spring of 2008, Mitchell was also one of four Concord Law graduates sworn in to the U.S. Supreme Court's bar.

The story in the Boston Herald is headed "Web degree no bar for this lawyer."

See also this Nov. 4, 2008 ILB entry.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 26, 2009 01:36 PM
Posted to General Law Related