By Paul D. Rosevear
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"I had seen plenty of scams advertising how you could earn a degree by just sending some company a hundred bucks, but I did my research," he says. Lamphier enrolled in an accredited online program that promised top-notch business training so he could complete his undergraduate studies. "I always had a business interest, but the truth is my desire to go back to school wasn’t even because I wanted to get ahead in my job. I honestly just wanted to earn my degree… I wanted to finish."
Lamphier’s excitement over finding a way to fulfill his academic goals from home wasn’t quite met with the same enthusiasm from others. "When I told co-workers that I had to get home so I could get on the computer and go to class, they all had a nice laugh," he says.
As Lamphier’s two year-and-three month tenure as an online student drew to a close, his long-abandoned dream began to resurface. "I had completely given up hope of getting my J.D.," he says. "But as I got closer to finishing my B.A. I started to get inspired to make it work."
After applying to law schools, Lamphier learned that Fordham University takes online learning a little more seriously than his co-workers did, as the school accepted his application.
"Fordham is a top-tier law school," claims the 29-year-old, who will have a law degree and half an MBA when he graduates. "I’ve already been offered a job at Ernst and Young doing mergers and acquisitions. I’ve been able to do all sorts of new and different things with my life as a result of what I got from distance learning."
Even the U.S. government has taken a strong interest in Lamphier, specifically in his online learning experience.
When The Secretary of Education set up a committee to hold hearings to learn about new ways to make education accessible, Lamphier was selected by Kaplan to represent the school. Included in the committee's focus on higher education in America was the flourishing facet of online learning, about which Lamphier spoke very positively.
"Since I continued on from online school to a traditional law school, I'm in a good position to make a comparison, and to attest that online education truly did prepare me well for the future," he explains.
Online learning was the stepping-stone Lamphier needed to get into law school. Though he attended law school at a brick-and-mortar institution, there are signs that distance learning may even become a more regular part of a legal education.
"We’re slowly converting people," says Barry Currier, dean of Concord Law School, which offers the only fully online law degree in the nation. "If you went back to 1998 when we first began, most people would probably say an online law school wouldn’t work. But it does, because we’re still here. Students enroll, get their education, pass the bar, and use their degrees to change careers or enhance the work they’ve been doing."
For Currier--whose career in legal education spans 30 years as both a professor and dean, as well as working on law school accreditation standards for the American Bar Association--much of the adventure of merging distance learning with legal education is in testing traditions and exploring new and perhaps better ways to deliver knowledge.
"People assume that if you put smart students and smart teachers in a room for three years, good things will happen," Currier expresses. "I want people to ask what else we should be doing to determine what is challenging to our students."
Online students and professors gave their testimony, so how is this exploratory mindset sitting with the legal community?
"In a nutshell, I’m mixed about the whole situation," says Michael Bellomo, author of LSAT Exam Cram (Que Publishing, 2006). "I’m the last person to suggest that breaking away from tradition is a bad thing. It opens up a field and returns legal education to what it was before the American Bar Association got its hands on it. Think about it--some of the country’s greatest lawyers like Clarence Darrow and Abraham Lincoln never even passed the bar."
Despite these examples, Bellomo has doubts. He believes online students miss out on traditional classroom opportunities like mock trials, classroom debates and legal clinics. "I’m open-minded, but I have reservations. Would I want someone who earned his or her law degree online defending me in a death penalty case?" he asks.
Beyond his uncertainties, Bellomo acknowledges the accessibility of online learning as a positive thing. "[Online education does] open up a possible legal career to people who otherwise won't have a chance to study law due to schedule or work issues."
Because online learning in general is a new education medium, it may have a tough case to prove to detractors. But for students like Lamphier, online education is a window into a world of possibilities thought to be unattainable
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