The report gives highly detailed data from 109 faculty at 55 major law schools in the United States about their current experience and future plans for online legal education. The 74-page study helps its readers to answer questions such as: how much time does it take faculty to prepare an online class and what has been the learning curve? How often do they consult information technology staff? How easy is it for them to integrate information from the library and other sources into their online courses? Do they like teaching online? Which courses are most and least amenable to online instruction? How much online teaching to they plan to do post pandemic? How much do they feel that their universities will want them to teach online? What pandemic practices should be continued post pandemic? What new plans do their law schools have to exploit online education for new program in the near future?
Just a few of this report’s many findings are that:
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Faculty at private college law schools increased their consultations with information technology staff by 187% over the prior, non-pandemic year.
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Faculty at highly ranked law schools were more likely than others to experience problems integrating course content into course management systems
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Female faculty were more eager than male faculty to retain online teaching options.
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Law schools are aggressively developing new programs and approaches to exploit the economic potential of distance legal education.
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More than 80% of faculty used Zoom in all of their classes in the past year.
Data is broken out by program characteristics such as law school ranking, program enrollment, public and private school status, as well as by personal characteristics of the respondents such as their age, gender and academic title.