Hi all, Any feedback on anyone who has done a JD at Concord? What were your thoughts and did it satisfy your expectations? This is an accredited online law school. Thanks,
Accrediting with Concord is an interesting thing. Yes Concord is accredited by DETC and the state of California allows them to sit for the California bar but you need to be careful about going to this school if you plan to practice in other states. Concord is not accredited by the American Bar Association and many states require an ABA accredited degree to sit for their bar exam. Some states will allow you to take the California bar and then will grant you reciprocity or allow you to sit for their bar exam after a certain amount of time, but some will flat out refuse to accept you. So my advice is check carefully outside of California if you want to attend Concord.
There are several threads on this forum discussing Concord Law School. Keep in mind that, from a strictly Bar admission standpoint, a JD from Concord is precisely the same as a JD from any other California correspondence law school, most of which are cheaper, some much cheaper, than Concord. Also keep in mind that the performance of Concord students on the First Year Law Student's Exam is less than stellar given the hype and "on-line bells and whistles". Nosborne, JD
I'm listening to a Concord online lecture in Contracts as I type this. FYLSE: www.lawprepare.com Christian CGEN, USQ SCPM, Stanford JD, Concord (in progress)
Thanks for your replies guys, I am checking northwestern california law, much cheaper than Concord, but wonder if quality of education/probability of passing Bar is good. Any other schools you recommend?
The cheapest correspondence law school in California is located at http://www.ccls.info I've spoken the the guy who runs it before and seems very nice. He advertises it as a "bare bones" education, no bells, whistles, etc. It does qualify you to take the California bar exam though. I'm currently studying with the University of London's External Programme. http://www.londonexternal.ac.uk It is a 3 year LL.B. degree that doesn't qualify you by itself for any state bar, but with one additional year of legal education at an ABA law school (sometimes wanting specific courses such as constitutional law and civil procedure) you can qualify in a large number of states for there state bar. There's even a possiblity of taking on online LLM with an ABA law school to meet this requirement. As of this time though, there is only one online ABA school LLM from St. Thomas in Florida and it is very expensive. I've noticed on British American's website that they claim that LL.B. graduates can take a shortened version of their program, supposedly one to two years, which will enable them to be eligible for the California State Bar Exam. http://www.british-american.edu I have yet to verify this information with the state bar, but it sounds very intriguing. To me, if this is correct, it would almost eliminate the need for a normal California correspondence law degree. In this scenario one would have both an internationally recognized law degree from the University of London, AND a California recognized JD degree enabling them to sit for the California State Bar Exam in the same time (four years) that it normally would take someone to get only the correspondence JD. This would also be cheaper than the regular California correspondence law degree because the entire from the University of London only costs a little more than $3,000. Oh well, just my two cents. Good luck to you!
