Law Schools and Technology: Where We Are and Where We Are Heading

Abstract

For many years, the question of how to use technology to teach the law has been a minor concern of the legal academy. That era of general indifference to developments in learning technologies is now coming to an end. There are many reasons for the change. Law schools are facing such a host of difficulties — declining enrollments, declining job prospects for graduates, reduced public funding, and understandable concerns about cost and debt — that sometimes it seems the only debate is over whether the situation is best described as a “tsunami” or “a perfect storm.” Against this backdrop, technology offers the attractive possibility of making legal education both more efficient and more effective. This article has two main aims. First, in Part II, it discusses some of the conditions that will push law schools to incorporate more learning technologies into our teaching methodologies in the coming years. Part III provides an overview of some of the learning technologies that have gained prominence, as well as at least limited usage, in law schools in recent years.

Keywords: Legal education, higher education, technology, online learning, blended learning, law school, law students, learning, teaching, flipped learning, online technologies, disruptive innovation