April 2000 

What About a Fifth
Law School for Minnesota?

By Professor Robert Oliphant

With the University of St. Thomas opening its doors in the fall of 2001, Minnesota will have three private law schools and a state law school located within a few minutes of each other. Collectively, these four schools will eventually graduate more than 900 lawyers a year. With annual full-time tuition at the private schools hovering around $20,000, and student loan obligations for many graduates exceeding $90,000, is there room for a fifth law school designed to accommodate well-qualified persons who simply can’t afford this kind of debt? A school that is open to persons looking for a change in their jobs or seeking to enhance their present careers? One that recognizes that some persons must continue to work at their present jobs to keep bread on the family table and who can’t afford the traditional part-time tuition? A law school that could deliver a solid four-year legal education with annual tuition of about $5,000?

While some may argue that such a law school is not feasible, they probably have not taken a careful look at the Concord University Law School, which opened in October 1998. Concord’s tuition is only $4,800 a year and a juris doctor degree can be attained after four years of study. Its stated mission is to provide a legal education to qualified students who without it could not obtain a law degree.

Concord, the first all-online Internet-driven law school in the nation, is deadly serious about its mission. Among its critics, it is sometimes characterized as "just another correspondence school." But to others, it is an educational idea whose time has finally arrived.

Jack Goetz, the dean of Concord Law School, writes that "Not long ago, an institution like Concord . . . would have seemed like nothing more than science fiction. Who could have imagined assembling the finest law professors in the nation, combining them with extraordinary technology and testing approaches, and then delivering them conveniently into the homes of students?" Goetz says that "Concord . . . is the fulfillment of a vision to provide the most rigorous and comprehensive legal education available to students who may have thought a law degree out of reach."

Concord is not presently accredited by the American Bar Association; therefore, students intending to practice law are required to pass a first-year California examination, which is known as the "Baby Bar." Successful matriculates are then eligible to sit for the California Bar upon receipt of a law degree from Concord. California is the only state that currently allows Concord graduates to sit for the Bar. However, because some states and the federal government allow lawyers with a California license to practice before their courts, Concord graduates may practice in certain areas outside that state.

Currently, there are 300 students from around the world enrolled at Concord. By the end of the year, enrollment is anticipated to have reached about 500.

Concord is not a one-horse operation developed on a shoestring and run by an owner who accidentally discovered the Internet was a convenient replacement for postage. Rather, it is a division of Kaplan, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Washington Post Company, which had revenues of more than $2 billion in 1998. The principal operations of this diversified media organization include newspaper and magazine publishing, broadcasting, and cable television news. Among its many holdings are Newsweek magazine, six television stations, and Cable One, which provides cable service to subscribers in 18 states.

Robert E. Oliphant is professor of law, William Mitchell College of Law. Prof. Oliphant was given special permission by Concord University to access its program in order to conduct research for this article.

"Faculty members lead regularly scheduled "chat room" sessions"

Concord has combined a traditional law school curriculum with the most advanced educational computer programming and the latest Internet-adaptive technologies in the world. Students study from traditional textbooks for their torts, legal writing, contracts and related courses while state-of-the-art computer programs chart their progress. The past and the future are blended into a powerful legal education environment.

Concord has a two-tiered faculty. The top tier is occupied by nationally recognized legal scholars including professors Arthur Miller of Harvard, Anthony Cook of Georgetown, Rafael Guzman of the University of Arkansas, Lawrence Levine of the University of the Pacific, and John Moye of the University of Denver. These scholars design the core courses and deliver online video lectures. However, they do not have direct personal contact with the students.

Teaching, grading, and answering most of the student questions fall to the faculty in the second tier of the Concord structure. These faculty, who would be considered "adjuncts" in most traditional law schools, are supervised by the academic dean.

The time requirement for completing one’s legal education is strict. While students may work on their courses at their own pace, they must complete them in not less than 48, nor more than 52, consecutive weeks of study.

Concord has been extremely creative in its effort to emulate as much as possible the study of law in a traditional law school setting. Each course is broken down into learning modules that encompass about a week and a half of study, 11.3 days to be exact. Before a student can move ahead in a course, the student must pass a multiple-choice examination covering that module. Through multiple-choice quizzes, Concord students test their understanding of legal concepts and retention of substantive law. Grading of multiple-choice questions is instantaneous and explanatory answers function as teaching tools. Concord says that in the first year, a student will answer hundreds of multiple-choice questions and write answers to 18 essay questions. Each essay answer is submitted for grading and returned online with extensive, individual comments.

Concord’s computers coordinate the progress of students as they pass through their course of study. The program prevents students from working ahead in one course without completing the appropriate modules in others. Should a student appear to be experiencing unusual problems in a course, the computer alerts the administration and the dean of students who contacts the student to lend assistance.

Not all of the learning at Concord University occurs without human interaction. The teaching faculty is accessible through email, phone, and fax to discuss legal issues with students and to answer their questions. Faculty lead regularly scheduled "chat room" sessions where the focus is on particular legal concepts or cases. The faculty ask questions, which are transmitted using RealAudio to students. Using their computer keyboards, students type their replies, which are transmitted to the faculty member’s moderator screen. Using Concord’s sophisticated chat room software, "good" questions and "useful" comments are posted from the moderator’s screen to the chat room so the students may see and respond to them. This format provides students with an opportunity to construct legal arguments, ask questions, and interact with their classmates and leaves complete academic control of the chat room in the hands of the instructor.

Concord students conduct legal research using a variety of Internet tools. They have access to West Group’s WESTLAW, FindLaw, Versus Law, and other legal databases used at law schools and in practice. A Concord Internet librarian assists students in finding case law and other materials online.

Concord received accreditation from the Accreditation Commission of the Distance Education Training Council (DETC) as of January 15, 2000. Approved by the U.S. Department of Education as a nationally recognized accrediting agency, the DETC is also recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and strives to identify schools that offer high quality distance education. DETC accreditation enables Concord students to qualify for tuition reimbursement from many American companies and organizations.

Concord has sparked controversy among members of the professoriate and judiciary. Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg says that the Internet could enhance legal training, but not without "face-to-face" contact. Justice Ginsberg, a former law professor at Rutgers and Columbia, says she is "troubled" by institutions like Concord. She argues that "So much of legal education and legal practice is a shared enterprise, a genuine interactive endeavor. The process inevitably loses something vital when students learn in isolation even if they can engage in virtual interaction with their peers and teachers."

Harvard Law School was furious over the decision by Professor Arthur Miller to lend his name and prestige to the Concord effort. Responding directly to Miller’s work with Concord, in August 1999 the law school published a new faculty manual and added a rule dealing with teaching activities on the Internet. Now, any faculty member who wants to serve as a teacher, researcher, or salaried consultant to an Internet-based university must get approval from the dean and an affirmative vote from the corporation that governs Harvard University. According to the handbook, failure to do so will result in severe penalties.

Despite the outcry from Harvard, the refusal of the ABA to grant Concord accreditation, and criticism from traditional law school faculty and others, the odds are quite good that Concord University will succeed in a big way. The enormous annual increases in law school tuition (pegged at two to three times the rate of inflation per year) during the past decade have placed the cost of a law degree out of the reach of many well-qualified persons. Concord offers these persons a window of opportunity to obtain what seemed quite beyond their financial reach. Moreover, portions of the educational model developed by Concord are so sound that in many ways they meet and in some cases exceed the standards of many traditional law schools.

Concord will not replace Harvard, the University of Minnesota, William Mitchell or Hamline law schools; however, with $2 billion behind it, a clear social purpose, and a commitment to excellence in legal education, it will have an impact on legal education as has nothing in the past century. For those qualified persons who seek a legal education but can no longer afford the enormous cost, Concord is a possibility. For some of Minnesota’s citizens, it is already the state’s fifth law school.