Washington Law School Announces Online Master’s Degree for Foreign Students
This week the law school of Washington University announced that it will be offering a master’s degree in United States law that will be conducted entirely online. The law school degree will be operated in partnership with the education technology company 2tor and is intended for lawyers who are currently practicing overseas. In general, law school classes have experienced a very slow movement to the online medium and the Washington law school degree is arguably the first programme to exist between such a well established and highly regarded law school and a commercial enterprise in the United States.
The dean of the law school, Kent D Syverud, stated that he did not yet know where the majority of the foreign students would come from, but he believed strongly that there is a high demand for such a course overseas. Unlike many online courses, the Masters degree will have the same high quality that St. Louis has, where the law school is physically situated. It will give overseas students and those already practicing in an international law firm the opportunity to receive quality education on the United State’s legal system. However, the law school dean also mentioned that the course would not prepare students for the bar exam, although technically they would probably be eligible to take the exam in California.
The Washington law school qualification will be as interactive as possible and will consist of live discussions via webcam; materials will be made available online and can be studied at the student’s own pace. The Washington law school tuition will be the same as the on-campus programme ($48,000). The partnering company 2tor will provide the marketing, web infrastructure and technical support for the course. A staff member will also be available to monitor each live class in order to deal with any possible technical problems. The first law school class will commence in January 2013 and will consist of twenty students. The University hopes to enrol four groups each year, totalling 100 students.
