The best distance learning law school is one that allows you to have flexibility in your schedule and does not require you to be at a physical campus for the majority of the lectures. This type of law program should provide a wide range of courses to help you secure a law degree in your country. There is one caveat — in the United States, distance learning law programs are not accredited by the American Bar Association. As such, you will more than likely not be allowed to sit for the bar examination, which means it will be difficult for you to practice law in any U.S. state. Nonetheless, many other countries accept degrees from distance learning law school programs.
Flexibility is key when choosing the best distance learning law courses for you. Some schools offer a course of study wherein students are required to frequently interact with their professors whether through video conferencing or visits to a physical campus. This more hands-on approach requires that students finish regular homework assignments by the posted deadline. Programs may also feature a completely independent study in which students are given the syllabus and allowed to work at their own pace. This approach is the most flexible because it usually does not require students to turn in homework or sit for examinations.
Any good distance learning law school will post a variety of law courses to satisfy your interests and help you enter into a legal career. There are many different types of law courses that serve as a foundation to a well-rounded distance learning legal education. These include tort law; domestic and international taxation law; contracts; and estate, wills, and trusts law. In addition, the best programs will supplement your law program of study with a distance learning legal writing program to teach you the vocabulary and sentence structure you need to know in order to write the most effective legal contracts and papers.
As of 2011, there has only been one distance learning law school in the United States that has produced a graduate who was admitted to a state bar. That law school is Concord University, and one of its alumni, Ross Mitchell, was admitted to the Massachusetts state bar in 2004. Ross Mitchell is proof that having a distance learning law degree can wield acceptance into a U.S. state bar; passing a US state's bar exam as a distance learning graduate is an uphill battle, though, and requires stern self-motivation, years of study, and self-discipline.