ABA proposes Distance Ed changes

I wonder how this will affect Concord Law School http://www.abanet.org/legaled/standards/proposed.html#memo

I spoke with a Concord rep a few weeks ago and they said they are diligently seeking ABA approval despite the ABA's stance on distance education. I took that with a grain of salt, but the new ABA proposal is a step in the right direction.

 

A tiny, tiny step in the right direction. My quick reading of this complex proposal seems to indicate that the J.D. student must have completed at least the first year in traditional residence before being allowed to participate in D/E courses. Also, it isn't clear to me whether the J.D. student can acquire more than a few semester hours via D/E.
Concord is going to have to show a much better record of Bar exam success before the ABA would even consider accrediting them. I should think that Oakbrook has a better chance than Concord, but neither organization stands a chance at this time.
After all, there are several Bar approved resident full time schools that the ABA refuses to accredit. Not just in California, either. There are schools like that in Massachutsetts and Alabama at least.
Nosborne

 

I wouldn't hold my breath. Here's a couple of quotes from the proposed standard that don't bode well for Concord:

Another key to the appropriate use of distance education is that students are involved in the law school community throughout the semester. The proposed Standard, consequently, insists that credit for distance education be limited almost exclusively to students who are "in residence" at the law school and to situations in which there is substantial interactivity.

That doesn't sound like exclusively DL schools like Concord will get in. Here's language from the standard:

d) Credit for asynchronous distance education delivered to resident law students, or synchronous distance education delivered to resident law students that does not meet the requirements of (c), may be awarded and may count toward the 45,000 minutes of classroom instruction required by Standard 304(b) if:

(1) there is opportunity for adequate interaction with the instructor and other students both inside and outside the formal structure of the course;

(2) no student enrolls in more than four (4) credits of courses offered under this subsection in any one term nor more than a total of twelve (12) credits during a student’s enrollment in the law school; and

(3) no student is permitted to enroll in a course offered under this subsection until that student has completed 28 credits toward the J.D. degree.

Sounds to me like the limit will be 4 credits per term, 12 total in a J.D. program, and none until the student has completed 28 credits. This took five years to adopt (assuming it passes) since the temporary standard banned credit for correspondence courses. It is either the first step in a long journey that may someday result in accreditation of completely DL programs, or it is a concession made to get people to shut up about allowing DL. Neither one will result in Concord's accreditation anytime soon.

Concord is a lot more likely to get California State Bar approval someday, IMHO.

Rich Douglas

 

But at first, Concord has to raise its bar passing rate. No good baby bar results for now.

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Jonathan Liu
http://www.geocities.com/liu_jonathan/distance.html

 

I agree with your comments here. However, it is a step in the right direction for any kind of distance learning for all law schools; and someday in the distant future Concord may have a chance whether for CA Bar approval or ABA approval. By the way, I told the Concord rep. that I didn't see ABA approval happening anytime soon and that they had a hard road to travel. He thought otherwise--without going into detail. Of course, he's just a rep who probably doesn't know all the ABA requirements.

 

I find it disturbing that a Concord rep would say something like that. I hope they're not using possible ABA accreditation as a selling point; that smells pretty bad to me.
From a practical point of view, I don't see that California approval would have much effect on Concord grads. I guess students would avoid the Baby Bar, but other than that, would CA approval make any difference at all?
Seems to me that RA would be a more useful goal.
Nosborne

 

For the uninformed, the Concord rep could have turned his statements into a very misleading selling point. Fortunately, I know better and I challenged him on it and he left it at "we're working on it" so I dropped it figuring I knew more than he did. And he was specifically referring to ABA approval, now that I've looked at my notes.

I don't see CA approval as much improvement over it's current status, with the one exception of doing away with the BabyBar requirement. I agree, RA would be better in my book.

 

I agree with those who suggest this isn't much of an olive branch to DL law schools. This clearly is a response to the growing number of ABA-accredited law schools that are using some limited forms of DL in their overwhelmingly residential J.D. programs.

I'll reiterate my suggestion that the true "tea leaf" of the ABA's eventual willingness to accredit primarily DL J.D. programs (if at all, which remains highly in doubt) is the way in it treats DL LL.M. programs. If DL LL.M. programs prove that they can deliver a high-quality program, we *may* see some real movement on the J.D. level.

 

Well, the weird thing is, the ABA does not accredit LLM programs. No one does, except the RA agencies. The ABA accredits only JD programs. Where a school wants to offer an LLM, the ABA looks at the LLM program only to make sure that it won't divert assets from the JD program. They call this "acquiescence" not "approval" or "accreditation".
Nosborne