Cornell’s Experience Running Online, Inter-School Law Courses – An FAQ

Abstract

For eight years Cornell’s Legal Information Institute has offered online law courses to students at other US law schools. Using a paced asynchronous approach, with streaming audio linked to referenced Web materials, interactive problems, online discussion, and a series of written exercises, the courses offer a successful model of how law schools can pool teaching resources and students to enrich curricula. The article reports on and explains the choices, challenges, student response, and educational outcomes of this ongoing experiment, organized around ten frequently asked questions. It also ventures some cautious conclusions about the near-term prospects for distance learning in US legal education, noting both inhibiting forces, including importantly constraints imposed by accreditation rules, and recent grounds for optimism.