Medium and Message: Online Legal Education

Our experience at Concord Law School of Kaplan University supports yesterday’s commentary in Inside Higher Education by Walden University President Jonathan Kaplan that “The Medium is Not the Message”  and his conclusion that it is past time for all of us in higher education to “stop categorizing … by the medium of delivery and start focusing on its [higher education’s] impacts and outcomes.” Concord participated in the Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) in 2005, 2007, and 2009. Our reports demonstrate that students in our fully online program interact with faculty and fellow students, are challenged in their studies, learn to “think like a lawyer,” and acquire the skills and values that law schools are expected to develop in students at levels that equal and often exceed the experiences reported by students at other participating law schools. We are proud of our program and believe that it is sound. Whatever shortcomings it has cannot be easily attributed to the fact that it is online, given our results.

LSSSE, conducted by the same group that administers NSSE, aims to provide reliable, credible information about the quality of the law student experience. Over six administrations of the survey, more than two-thirds of ABA-approved law schools have participated at least once, and a number do so every year. The total number of respondents is approaching 150,000; LSSSE is the largest and most reliable study of students’ law school experiences. Other than approximately 15 participating Canadian schools, Concord is the only non-ABA school in the survey and it is the only online school.

The ABA Standards for the Approval of Law Schools currently prohibit a fully online school from being ABA-approved. This is not the only ABA Standard that Concord does not currently meet, but it is the major barrier to us applying for approval.

The ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, where I used to work and continue to volunteer, is responsible for the administration of the ABA Standards. It has begun a regularly scheduled comprehensive review of the Standards. This review will consider how the ABA Standards can include more outcomes and rely less on those inputs that are poor proxies for assuring that a school is delivering a “sound program of legal education,” which is the Standards’ term of art for a program that can be approved.

An intelligently designed set of accreditation standards is not likely to be devoid of input measures. But it is increasingly difficult to be comfortable with standards that ipso facto preclude approval of programs with outcomes generally consistent with a conclusion that the goals of an educational program are being met.

The debate about input and outcome measures is not a debate about online vs. residential education or traditional vs. for-profit education. It’s about how to set standards that assure and promote good education. That is Kaplan’s point. Accrediting agencies, including the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, need to be creative in defining appropriate outcomes to provide the assurance students and the public deserve and then giving institutions the opportunity to grow their programs within those standards in any way that accomplishes the program’s objectives.

Concord participated in the Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) in 2005, 2007, and 2009. Our reports demonstrate that students in our fully online program interact with faculty and fellow students, are challenged in their studies, learn to “think like a lawyer,” and acquire the skills and values that law schools are expected to develop in students at levels that equal and often exceed the experiences reported by students at other participating law schools. We are proud of our program and believe that it is sound. Whatever shortcomings it has cannot be easily attributed to the fact that it is online, given our results.

LSSSE, conducted by the same group that administers NSSE, aims to provide reliable, credible information about the quality of the law student experience. Over six administrations of the survey, more than two-thirds of ABA-approved law schools have participated at least once, and a number do so every year. The total number of respondents is approaching 150,000; LSSSE is the largest and most reliable study of students’ law school experiences. Other than approximately 15 participating Canadian schools, Concord is the only non-ABA school in the survey and it is the only online school.

The ABA Standards for the Approval of Law Schools currently prohibit a fully online school from being ABA-approved. This is not the only ABA Standard that Concord does not currently meet, but it is the major barrier to us applying for approval.

The ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, where I used to work and continue to volunteer, is responsible for the administration of the ABA Standards. It has begun a regularly scheduled comprehensive review of the Standards. This review will consider how the ABA Standards can include more outcomes and rely less on those inputs that are poor proxies for assuring that a school is delivering a “sound program of legal education,” which is the Standards’ term of art for a program that can be approved.

An intelligently designed set of accreditation standards is not likely to be devoid of input measures. But it is increasingly difficult to be comfortable with standards that ipso facto preclude approval of programs with outcomes generally consistent with a conclusion that the goals of an educational program are being met.

The debate about input and outcome measures is not a debate about online vs. residential education or traditional vs. for-profit education. It’s about how to set standards that assure and promote good education. That is Kaplan’s point. Accrediting agencies, including the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, need to be creative in defining appropriate outcomes to provide the assurance students and the public deserve and then giving institutions the opportunity to grow their programs within those standards in any way that accomplishes the program’s objectives.< >< >< >

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