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52 J. Legal Educ. 506 (2002)
Information Technology and U.S. Legal Education: Opportunities, Challenges, and Threats

handle is hein.journals/jled52 and id is 514 raw text is: Information Technology and U.S.
Legal Education: Opportunities,
Challenges, and Threats
Peter W. Martin
Overview
Digital technology holds out exciting opportunities to U.S. law schools.
They can
 involve academics, lawyers, and judges situated anywhere in the
world in their educational program
* offer both less costly and more flexible educational arrangements
 provide access to students currently excluded by cost and distance
* distribute faculty scholarship more widely, at less cost
 share courses and students
 extend their reach to regions and educational audiences previ-
ously closed
It also exposes U.S. law schools individually and collectively to severe
challenges. Not only may others claim the new opportunities opened by
digital technology, but they may also upset the current market forJ.D. educa-
tion. Possible futures include
 the emergence of a few dominant programs, at least for some
segments of the already stratified legal education marketplace
* law schools retaining credentialing authority while more and more
of the preceding education is delivered by commercial entities
 failure for law schools that cannot deliver value for the added costs
entailed in residential instruction
* erosion of the symbiosis between faculty teaching and scholarship
Many schools lack the institutional competence to respond effectively.
Among the organizational and cultural elements that handicap law schools in
the current environment are
* limited capacity to respond quickly and strategically to external
change
PeterW. Martin <matintii@lii.law.corncll.cdut> is the ,anc M. G. Foster pirof essor and coditrcctor of
the l cgal Information Institte at Cotrnell law School.

Journal of Legal Education, Volume 52, NumIer 'I (December 2002)

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