Anyone here in an online law school program

Is anyone here pursuing a Bar-track law degree from an all-online school? I'm going to use online law school as an absolute last resort (if I don't get into ABA and non-ABA schools...I test terribly, so who knows what my LSAT score will be). Anyway, I'd be interested to know what people's experiences are like in the different schools. Feel free to e-mail me directly as well.

Thanks,
Jonathan

 

David Boyd, who posts here fairly often, runs about the best online program out there, Taft University.

 

You know, just to pontificate a bit...depending on where you want to live and what you want to do with your J.D., I am not so sure that an online program should be a "last resort". Online programs have some inescapable advantages for certain classes of California lawyers:

-they are CHEAP both in dollars and in opportunity cost; (tuition is low to trivial, you don't have to move, and you can still work)

-Therefore the student earns his law license without having to service a mountain of debt. (A private school J.D. is running around $80,000 in tuition and fees these days.)

-Therefore the student is free to accept lower salaried public interest positions which is where the law is most rewarding as a career.

-the student gets a "feel" for law in the first year and is not then in so deep that he can't get out if he finds that he hates the law. (Half of all lawyers would rather have done something else.)

 

I agree, to an extent. It's always better to leave options open, but there are many public interest positions that are very competitive to obtain. Many of the top privates offer loan forgiveness programs that pay off a certain amount of loans in lieu of public service.

Likewise, most firms allow associates to do pro bono work, with firm resources, in the exchange of reduced billable hours.

If the opportunity costs is not an issue, I don't see anything wrong with going to a state's flagship public, if decent, instead of a high priced, similarly ranked private.

 

Everything you say is true.

It's worth pointing out also that apparently someone out there got bredit for half of his ABA J.D. on the strength of having become a California lawyer through D/L study. The story may be urban legend, but it has been mentioned on this board.

I used to scream that the best choice under almost all circumstances was one's own state university law school; ABA accredited and much cheaper than a private school would be. There are two or three considerations however:

-Admissions are competitive and getting more so for the very reason that private, even prestige schools are pricing themselves into the stratosphere.

-There are more private, ABA accredited schools than state schools.

-Most state schools don't seem to offer an evening part-time program. Thus, the opportunity cost, the foregone salary for three years, is enormous, more than enough to cover the additional tuition at the average private school.

-If one really has his heart set on a career in Wall Street or the upper echelons of legal academia or the federal government, a top tier J.D. and high class standing are BIG even PIVOTAL advantages.

 

Is government jobs (attorney) are very competitive?

Is that State, Federal or both?

Anythought on that would be appreciated.

 

It depends.

Every federal attorney job that I have seen (including military commissions) requires an ABA degree. Competition for federal attorney jobs is sufficiently intense that I have never been interviewed, let alone hired even WITH an ABA degree. However, my experience is limited to New Mexico where a federal salary is VERY generous. I could imagine that federal jobs in, say, Washington D.C. would be more plentiful and might be easier to get.

I am acquainted with lawyers in California and New Mexico who obtained state jobs with unaccredited J.D. degrees. I have also heard of discrimination in state employment against such lawyers. I think that the level of competition in a given geographic area or agency will affect the analysis.