The idea of an online juris doctor may seem like a great idea for busy adults looking to save while also furthering their education, but an online juris doctor is actually a bad investment right now. Online JDs aren’t accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA) and program graduates are currently only eligible to take the California Bar Exam since California is the only state that allows online law schools to register for the bar. Besides their lack of accreditation and the fact that a graduate would have to move to California to even have the opportunity to practice law in the United States, why else is an online juris doctor a bad investment?
A law degree is a social degree. A student studying in a solitary environment would never fully be able to fully grasp what it would be like to be in a courtroom. An interactive classroom environment allows a student to not only understand the material, but also become articulate in it. Study can only take a student so far, but implementation of the learned knowledge is really the next step to becoming a real lawyer. Employers feel this way, too. Many law firms are wary about even interviewing candidates with online juris doctor because they aren’t able to make the connections integral to a successful career in law.
Furthermore, the American Bar Association has no plans to accredit more online juris doctor programs. The main reason behind this is because the ABA has a threshold of how many online hours students are allowed to take—called “distance education”—when pursuing a juris doctor. The maximum number of distance education hours a JD student can take is set at 12. Entirely online programs break this rule. Even worse, there is a stigma attached to non-ABA schools that can affect hiring outcomes. Even if this unlikely change does occur, most law professors agree that a classroom setting will always trump online accreditation simply because the stigma will live on.
For those students who still decide to pursue the non-ABA accredited, online juris doctor route, and happen to live in California, there is still even more muck and mire. Because online JD programs aren’t accredited, if a student wants to finish their legal education and take the California bar exam, they must first take and pass the California’s First Year Law Students’ Examination after completing the first year of their program. If their program had been ABA-accredited, this would not be the case.
While the flexibility of an entirely online law degree may seem promising, the headaches incurred in trying to find employment are completing an online juris doctor simply don’t seem worth the effort. If a person really wants to have a career in law, a standard, ABA-accredited university juris doctor is the route to go.
*Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net