Another View
| Author | Rebecca Purdom |
| Position | Associate Professor at Vermont Law School and Assistant Dean for the Environmental Program and Director of the Distance Learning Initiative |
| Pages | 49-49 |
JULY/AUGUST 2011 ❧ Page 49
Copyright © 2011, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.
Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, July/August 2011
anoTher view
We read in U.S. News
and World Report
about the best places
to go for a training
in environmental law
and policy: Vermont Law School.
Northwestern School of Law of Lewis
and Clark College. Pace University.
Florida State. Berkeley. University of
Oregon. But many seeking environ-
mental legal training simply can’t find
their way to Vermont, Or-
egon, New York, or Cali-
fornia. What’s an advocate
in search of training to do?
e growth of distance
learning programs has
dominated the higher
education news for the
last ten years. From Duke
University to Phoenix Uni-
versity Online, reputable Ivy League
schools and questionable for-profit
ventures offer classes and degrees to
anyone with an internet connection.
Yet law schools have all but missed the
distance learning trend.
e American Bar Association has
long barred JD students from tak-
ing all but the most minimal credits
through any distance, correspondence,
or online program. e sanctity of the
Socratic classroom is well guarded by
the ABA’s Rules Standards and Rules
of Procedure for Approval of Law
Schools.
Yet a few law schools have sought to
experiment with online and distance
learning programs through their non-
JD degrees. A handful of LLM pro-
grams, exempt from the ABA’s online
prohibition, have quietly found their
way onto the internet. Such programs
join a panoply of online undergradu-
ate and graduate education options
in a field that has grown some 21.1
percent in the last decade, accounting
for almost 30 percent of all growth
in higher education, according to the
Sloan Consortium, which tracks on-
line education in the United States.
In 2007, Vermont Law School
recognized it had two non-JD pro-
grams that could be offered online in
accordance with ABA rules. e first,
a master’s degree in environmental law
and policy, targets non-JD students
and professionals working in advocacy,
government jobs, and industry. e
second, an LLM in environmental
law, capitalizes on the law school’s
considerable environmental course
offerings.
Two years ago, Vermont Law
School began studying the opportu-
nity to put these degrees online. e
administration commis-
sioned market studies to
test interest, and hired con-
sultants to assess whether
the law school’s unique and
robust curriculum could
be delivered successfully
via computer. e faculty
conducted significant soul-
searching. Concerns over
academic quality and the perception
of the school dominated both formal
faculty meetings and discussions
among trustees.
After careful consideration, and
with some trepidation, Vermont Law
School has decided to venture into the
distance learning arena. e ultimate
decision included many factors, but
two predominated: First, as has been
reported both within the industry and
in the popular press, the law school
fiscal model may need revision. New
York Times headlines ask, “Is Law
School a Losing Game?” and the Wall
Street Journal cries, “Law School Loses
Its Allure as Jobs at Firms are Scarce.”
Vermont Law School has already cre-
ated legal institutes to help sponsor
students through projects and fellow-
ships, such as its Institute for Energy
and the Environment and the newly
formed Center for Agriculture and
Food Systems. Moving to distance
learning provides yet another way to
offer environmental law and policy
education at a lower overall cost to
students.
Second, and perhaps even more
important to our faculty, was the need
to provide law and policy education to
advocates, leaders, and decisionmakers
both in the United States and abroad
who simply cannot take the time out
of their lives and away from their
communities to pursue traditional
graduate education. We anticipate at-
tracting students who are working full
time in jobs they can’t afford to leave,
and students who have important on-
going work in their communities that
they refuse to abandon.
Our classes will be small, and
exclusive. Each student cohort — a
group of students working together
over five semesters to complete their
degree — will consist of only 15 stu-
dents. ese students will take one
class at a time (to better fit into busy
lives and juggled responsibilities) and
complete each class in a compact and
rigorous seven weeks. Students will
work with our tenured and central
faculty, and be supported throughout
their journey by student service and
retention personnel and alumni men-
tors.
We do not know where this jour-
ney will take us, as a law school, or as
a community of environmental faculty
invested in training and cultivating
future environmental leaders. We
hope to reach a pool of people hungry
for, but previously unable to access
quality legal education. We do know
that those future leaders and advocates
are already finding us: Our applicant
pool for our inaugural class starting
May 2011 comes from locales rang-
ing from New York to Hong Kong,
and are filled with the likes of bankers,
scientists, community organizers, and
even an administrative law judge.
Although this initiative has risks,
Vermont Law School believes that
high quality, exclusive, online educa-
tion targeted at those who cannot par-
ticipate in the traditional classroom is
one of the many ways we will reform
legal education. is venture into dis-
tance education may also be the way
in which we reach, train and support
a whole new population of environ-
mental leaders and advocates.
Rebecca Purdom is an Associate Professor
at Vermont Law School and Assistant Dean for
the Environmental Program and Director of the
Distance Learning Initiative.
Rebecca Purdom
To continue reading
Request your trial