As has been predicted, as law school enrollments decline and jobs become more scarce, they and the ABA are slowly softening their stance on distance learning. Anyone care to guess when we'll first see a fully online, ABA approved law degree? (and I'm not talking about one of those California programs) http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/articles/2016-11-07/law-schools-experiment-with-partially-online-learning
I'm not holding my breath. If they're already having problems with their placement rates, that may make it less likely they'd approve distance learning since making law school more convenient will lead to even more newly minted JDs.
You might be right but historically we've seen that schools are more concerned with enrollments than with outcomes.
I don't see it happening for at least another couple of years at the earliest. The schools are concerned about enrollment. That has led them to pulling in people by any means necessary. In turn we've seen a decrease in bar passage rates, a rougher market, etc.... The ABA has come under a lot of scrutiny lately due to their lax requirements on schools. There's been a push to close the "non-performing" schools down or at least draw them down significantly. Now, I think the market is "turning around". Except for the salaries aren't what they used to be. If you make programs online they become more convenient for most. That convenience could lead to more students and the cycle being started all over again. I don't believe many lawyers support it. Some look at that as "watering the profession" since it doesn't really allow for the Socratic method. Others simply don't want more lawyers when they feel as if the market has enough.
First bolded comment--I'd like to think it would come to fruition in my life time, however long that is. Two years would be optimistic I agree. Second bolded comments--I understand the argument for the Socratic method. I also understand where persons that are already in an industry want the gatekeepers to make sure that their ranks do not become overpopulated, making the pie that much smaller for all. Over the years we've seen ABA law schools, second and third tier etc., go from affordable to astronomical. Back in the day, you could still work and attend law school in the evenings, graduate, pass the bar and transition into the practice of law and not have an albatross around your neck. And hey, if you wanted to take a non-big law job, and really serve the public, well you could. Still possible today, but at a much higher price point, making it more difficult to justify opportunity cost and debt owed after graduation. If online can reduce the tuition costs and grant more access to those that want to study law, then why not? The bar exam supposedly will still to continue to filter out those that shouldn't be practicing law (I don't know what the bar exam has to the do with the actual practice of law, but that is for another thread).
I have wondered for decades why the notion of private study with a lawyer allowing one to take the bar exam never really caught on -- last time I checked, permitted in 7 or 8 states, I think. Until the 1950s, more than half of all lawyers pursued this path. Abe Lincoln by the fire, and all that. Why hasn't this method been promoted/exploited? The only attempt I know of was the short-lived British-American Law School in the 1990s, whose founder created dozens of long video courses to facilitate the learning.
