Online LL.M. program participation booms since pandemic

The way every law school administers its online LL.M. programs differs in detail; but in broad strokes, these programs exist to help multiple groups further their legal education.

Working attorneys, international students looking for leg up in dealing with U.S. companies, even non-law students that are working professionals all benefit from the expanded offerings from multiple law schools across the country.

More than 50 law schools offer over 80 LL.M. programs in a hybrid or fully online format.

Boston University School of Law offers two LL.M. programs — Taxation and Banking and Financial Law — both of which can be taken fully online. Taxation has been available online since the early 2010s, and at that time the school handled the course load by prerecording the classes for students to view at their leisure asynchronously. They soon discovered, however, that tax law changes so quickly that this solution quickly became untenable due to the need to constantly update the program.

Online LL.M.s

Live and recorded classes

“What we have ended up doing for our online program is that we have a live class, and we just record that class,” said Christina Rice, assistant dean for graduate, international and online programs at BU Law.

These recordings are available for viewing after the fact, in the event a student can’t attend live, and it eases the burden of having to make dedicated recordings strictly for online students, while also allowing the students to keep pace with the in-person students.

“It’s not meant to be a self-paced course,” Rice said. “We expect students to keep up with their classes, week to week. You can’t binge watch; you can’t get ahead. You’re keeping the same pace as the live class. But you do have a lot of flexibility as to when and how you view that class.”

Texas A&M University School of Law also began its online LL.M. programs before the pandemic. Wealth Management and Risk Management and Compliance launched in the summer of 2017, followed by International Tax Law and Policy in the fall of 2019.

David Dye, assistant vice president for professional schools and programs and assistant dean of graduate programs at Texas A&M Law, said they brought in William Byrnes, an expert focused in these areas and who had built similar programs in two other law schools.

The school saw a need and filled it, but the response to the online offerings since the pandemic has been astronomical.

Dye administers all the graduate degrees at the school. He noted that prior to the pandemic, there were about 150 students across all the online programs; now, there are nearly 1,500.

The online LL.M. program specifically has more than doubled. Pre-pandemic there were about 40 students, and now there are 100.

“It became, rightly so, much more acceptable to learn online,” Dye said. “And not just acceptable, but people became comfortable with it.”

Weekly modular focus

Texas A&M Law’s online LL.M.s are asynchronous, modular classes. They are not self-paced; assignments must be completed within the week that module is contained. Students need to work with their professor and classmates through each module.

There is a synchronous component to the online programs, and it’s one Dye is proud of. The school requires that the faculty member have an online virtual office hour each week so that students have an outlet for asking questions or having discussions in real time.

“Some weeks, I will have half the class show up and we’ll have a robust discussion,” Dye said. “Other times, the content doesn’t maybe ask for as many questions and a small number will show up.”

There is no requirement that students must attend these office hours, and when attending, they don’t have to stay the whole time and can pop in and out as their schedule and needs allow. But the teacher remains available the entire time, no matter what.

“Even if everyone were to drop off of the office hour, I would stay on and make sure I am there for that hour because I’m dealing with working adults,” Dye said. “I want to make sure that if they’re getting off [work] at 7 p.m., and I’m offering a 6:30 to 7:30 office hour, and they’ve got to rush home and then jump on and ask a question at the very last minute, that I’m there.”

These office hours are recorded for those whose schedules don’t fit the time, and one-on-one interviews can also be scheduled at any time. It’s all in service of ensuring that the students have access to the faculty member, even though they aren’t in the building.

Lewis & Clark Law School launched its in-person LL.M. program in 2012, with the online component coming in 2021. The school’s online Animal Law LL.M. has been tremendously successful, boasting graduates from 33 countries and six continents.

“With our asynchronous opportunities, [students] are able to self-pace and have it work for them,” said Pamela Byce, associate dean of the Animal Law program at Lewis & Clark Law School. “That really helps existing professionals who want to either expand on their animal law expertise or pivot into this field.”

Lewis & Clark Law School is proud of the fact that the in-person faculty are the same people teaching the online courses. This allows for the same quality education and exposure to the leaders, experts and scholars in the animal law field. These experts and faculty members design and develop the courses to continually introduce new topics of study.

“We offer 18 different online courses for our LL.M. students, and those are constantly being updated and refined,” Byce said. “The teaching remains innovative, cutting-edge and on-point for anyone who comes to study with us online.”

The common refrain from schools that offer online LL.M. programs is that the students love the flexibility they offer. But there’s another underrated benefit that Rice has noticed.

“Unlike a more typical law school classroom where everybody is very entry level, we have people who’ve been practicing for 10, 20, 30 years, and they add a level of robustness to the class discussion that I think everybody really benefits from,” she said.