Welcome back to Ahead of the Curve. I'm Karen Sloan, legal education editor at Law.com, and I'll be your host for this weekly look at innovation and notable developments in legal education.

This week, I'm taking a big-picture look at online law school, and how professors and law students feel about this big experiment. Will going online forever change legal education? Plus, the University of Maine School of Law has an unusual pick for its next dean: a judge straight of the bench of the state's supreme court. I'll also get you caught up on all of the past week's legal ed coronavirus developments, which include Utah moving to an emergency diploma privilege for upcoming law grads. Read on and stay home!

Please share your thoughts and feedback with me at [email protected] or on Twitter: @KarenSloanNLJ

So, How's Online Teaching Going?

It has been about a month since most universities suspended in-person teaching and began the migration to online classes. Some early adopter law schools have been online for a full four weeks now, while others have only been functioning digitally for a week or two.

Regardless, I figured it's a good time to check in on how it's going, especially since only a few more weeks are left in the semester at many schools. From my conversations with administrators and professors, it seems like the switch has gone better than many expected, though it may be that people's expectations were pretty low to begin with. (Or perhaps people just don't want to tell a reporter that they think it has been a full-on disaster.) There have of course been the usual technical glitches and learning curves to overcome, but most people have said their students are still showing up and still engaged, even if the dynamic of meeting over a screen is different. Some professors have said that it's more difficult to facilitate discussions online, and that it harder to read the atmosphere of the room—so to speak—to get a sense of whether students are understanding the material.

I'm not entirely sure that students feel that things are going as well, though. The ones I've spoken to directly haven't lodged any major complaints. (Again, maybe they are holding back a bit with a reporter?) But I also monitor the anonymous chatter of law students on Reddit to get a sense of things, and the picture there is a bit more bleak. I've seen lots of posters saying that they are finding it hard to get motivated to study for their online classes, and that it has been difficult to focus during those online sessions. The big caveat with this is that law students have lots of reasons to be anxious and unfocused at the moment, so it's difficult to separate out whether these feelings are tied to attending classes via computer or if they are more or less a byproduct of the COVID-19 pandemic and it's disruption of normal life.

I actually have a few data points to throw into all this anecdote, though, courtesy of a survey conducted by Primary Research Group. Another caveat: this survey is based on responses from just 54 law school faculty and staff. So it's hardly comprehensive, but it does give a taste of what's going on out there in terms of legal education going online. First, it seems that Zoom has emerged as a clear favorite in terms of the video platform professors are using. Fully 87% of the respondents said they are using Zoom, and they gave their law school IT departments high marks for their assistance and support in going digital. Actual class content such as readings, etc., is being delivered on a variety of platforms. And the vast majority of respondents said they are holding their classes synchronously, meaning that students all log on at the same time for the class. (A fair number are mixing live video classes with pre-recorded elements.)

Overall, the respondents said they spent an average of about half of their time over the past 10 days working to move their classes online or prepping for their online classes. And here's the part that I found most interesting: The survey asked respondents whether their current experience with online teaching has changed their opinion of distance education as a teaching tool. In general, the respondents reported that their opinion of distance education has improved, with professors from highly ranked schools reporting the biggest improvement—perhaps because they had the least previous experience with online teaching.

This gets to the heart of something I've been hearing over the past month, which is that this is a transformational point for legal education. More than a few people have told me they believe that distance education will forevermore be a bigger part of law school even after the pandemic (hopefully) subsides. Being forced to teach online has proven to many skeptics in the academy that it can be done, even if it presents different challenges and shortcomings than in-person instruction. The decision last week by the Law School Admission Council to administer an at-home LSAT is yet another sign that we've crossed the Rubicon on this one. Mere months ago, heck even weeks ago, it would have been unthinkable that aspiring lawyers would be taking the LSAT in their pajamas and on their laptops. Yet here we are.

From the Frying Pan To the Fire

The University of Maine has named its new law dean, and the choice is an unconventional one. Maine Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Leigh Ingalls Saufley is leaving the bench to assume the law school's top post on April 14. It is something of a homecoming for Saufley, who graduated from the Portland law school in 1980. She has served on the state's high court since 2001, and before that was state district court judge and attorney in the state Attorney General's office.

"Chief Justice Saufley is nationally renowned for her accomplishments as a jurist and her commitment to public service," said university system chancellor Dannel Molloy in an announcement of the appointment. "Next week we will have much more to say about how these attributes fit into our future plans for legal education and service in Maine."

It's uncommon for jurists to move to law dean posts, but it does happen. Last year, Mark Martin stepped down as the chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court to become dean of Regent University School of Law. (Duke; Pepperdine; and the University of North Texas at Dallas College of Law are the other schools that I can recall off the top of my head that have had former judges as dean over the past decade.)

Best of luck to Saufley, especially since she is moving into the dean's office at a uniquely challenging time.

Coronavirus Extra Credit Reading

Law school clinics across the country are pivoting to help people impacted by the pandemic, from drafting will and ensuring food supplies to assisting small businesses and trying to get inmates released from prison.

The Utah Supreme Court wants to let recent and upcoming law grads skip the bar exam, provided they practice for a period under a licensed attorney.

Most jurisdictions, however, are gravitating toward extending supervised practice programs that will allow new law grads to practice until they have a chance to take the bar exam.

In a first, aspiring law students will be able to take the LSAT at home next month—an accommodation the Law School Admission Council announced last week as it cancelled the April in-person test.

Just how will COVID-19 impact law school admissions? Applicants are already down 4%.

All law schools in the so-called T-14 have now gone to mandatory pass/fail grading for the spring semester.

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I'll be back next week with more news and updates on the future of legal education. Until then, keep in touch at [email protected]