One of the big differences from a traditional law school is the “baby bar” that the State of California requires all Concord students to take after their first year in order to be allowed to continue into their second year. Concord students converged in Los Angeles this past October to attend a review course, take a practice exam and sit for the California “baby bar”. This is the only time that students, administrators and faculty convene outside of the “Internet Space” and spend time together “live” (at the school's facility in Westwood, just blocks away from UCLA). One of the benefits of this convergence, according to second year law student, John Jascob, was the chance to network with fellow students in person in order to form study groups for the upcoming year. Because of the time differences, the group does not meet in a chat room, but communicates via e-mail.
Because distance education programs do not meet the "residence study" requirement of the ABA, Concord is ineligible to apply for accreditation. Therefore, its graduates may not sit for the Bar Exam in any other state until, depending on reciprocity, they have passed the California Bar Exam, and/or met other requirements of the individual states. Does this concern John? Somewhat. He does ponder how he will be viewed professionally after graduating from a non-accredited school. However, noting that he'll either stay at his current job once he graduates or take the California Bar and use his law degree for something non-traditional, he acknowledges that his concerns of how the traditional profession will view him diminishes.
Over two years ago, the ABA's Accreditation Committee began to grapple with distance education and the accompanying accreditation issue, and developed “Temporary Guidelines on Distance Education” to permit ABA accredited schools to experiment with distance education. Then, just this past November, the ABA sponsored a “Distance Education Conference” and reaffirmed its temporary guidelines on distance learning, allowing schools to continue to experiment with conducting portions of courses on line. These guidelines hardly accommodate a law school like Concord, where the entire curriculum is on the Internet. Thus, none of this offers any immediate answer to Concord's accreditation issue.
In addition to the ABA's distance learning conference, CALI (The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction, www.cali.org), is sponsoring its 2nd Annual “Deconstructing the Law Classroom: Workshop on Distance Learning in Law”, June 21-22. The workshop, aptly titled “GOING THE DISTANCE”, will focus on the political, cultural, marketing, accreditation and technology issues surrounding distance legal education. Perhaps CALI will be an advocate for Concord?
While Concord has carved out a new niche for itself, it does not appear that they will be alone for long. The American Lawyer's October '99 Technology Supplement AMLAW TECH reported that Florida's Nova Southeastern University Law School is planning to offer an LLM program that "will be completely online." (The ABA's guidelines are not applicable to LLM programs.)
If I had it to do all over again, attending Concord is certainly enticing. Just think. No commute. No battling the weather. The furthest I'd have to carry my HEAVY books to class would be from the dining room to my desk. And if I was called on in class to outline a brief, I could at least do it from the comfort of my own couch instead of being asked to stand in front of the class for the “Socratic attack”. And, my mother would rest easy knowing I was curled up safely at home in front of my computer.
The Concord University School of Law can be reached on the Internet at http://www.concordlawschool.com, by e-mail: info@concordlawschool.com or by phone at 800-439-4794.
