Dean Ken Randall, George Mason College’s Scalia Legislation Faculty
Dean Ken Randall joined George Mason College’s Scalia Legislation Faculty in December 2020 because the COVID-19 pandemic was forcing the authorized business— together with authorized educators — to adapt to quickly altering circumstances.
Because the pandemic progressed and different legislation faculties scrambled, Randall didn’t simply rework the legislation college’s curriculum for the brand new regular. He additionally took benefit of his in depth expertise in distance-learning expertise to ascertain extra distant teaching programs that may stay in place even after the pandemic subsides, and he elevated Scalia Legislation’s emphasis on interdisciplinary studying experiences.
A Tech-Ahead Dean for Tech-Ahead Instances
Randall isn’t any stranger to sensible adaptation in fraught circumstances. Throughout his twenty-year tenure as dean on the College of Alabama Faculty of Legislation, the college was one of many first to deploy a distance studying program in an effort to save lots of an LLM program that was, as Randall places it, “shedding its shirt.”
The chance to earn an LLM remotely proved enticing for would-be college students, and enrollment numbers shot up the next yr.
On the time — across the mid-Nineties, in keeping with Randall — distance studying required particular {hardware} and college students nonetheless needed to attend courses in-person at off-campus amenities that had the mandatory expertise to transmit lectures and permit distant learners to contribute to class discussions utilizing voice-activated microphones.
“That expertise reworked the LLM program,” Randall says. “It was nice for the college since you had a complete lot extra enrollments from the coed physique, and it was nice additionally since you had a complete lot extra inclusivity; individuals who couldn’t drive to a campus may drive to a extra handy location.”
When the pandemic hit in 2020, Randall says, the fast adoption of distance studying throughout the nation validated his efforts as dean on the College of Alabama and as co-founder of authorized education-focused distance studying software program firm iLaw, which was acquired by BARBRI Holdings in 2017.
“Nonetheless, to me, [distance learning] was simply such a no brainer, so it was actually sort of attention-grabbing to see that adoption of it occur in a single day” through the pandemic, he provides.
Utilizing Distant-Studying Expertise to Increase Inclusivity
As an early adopter of distance studying, Randall can attest to the advantages expertise can provide legislation faculties exterior of the context of the pandemic — particularly in relation to growing entry to diploma packages for people who may in any other case not be capable to pursue a authorized training.
One of many dean’s huge takeaways from the early adoption of distance studying on the College of Alabama was that offering the chance to study remotely performs a necessary position in making greater teaching programs extra inclusive and accessible.
In recognition of the potential for distance studying to advertise extra inclusive authorized training, Scalia Legislation now gives a primarily on-line Flex JD program with twice-weekly in-person periods, in keeping with Randall.
“The one cause for these two nights every week is that the ABA nonetheless has guidelines limiting the quantity of distance training,” he says, including that the college’s shut proximity to Washington, D.C. makes Scalia Legislation a wonderful selection for working professionals excited about taking courses at night time.
“It’s a sport changer for an individual who has private tasks or household tasks or work tasks to come back to a constructing two nights every week slightly than 5 nights every week.”
To spice up the inclusivity efforts of the Flex JD even additional, Scalia Legislation gives breaks in tuition for potential and present college students working within the D.C. space in authorities or public curiosity jobs.
Along with the Flex JD, the legislation college now additionally gives a wholly on-line LLM program designed particularly for foreign-educated attorneys in search of to qualify to apply U.S. legislation in Washington, D.C. The expedited program units college students on the trail to finish their training in U.S. legislation and be eligible for the D.C. bar examination in only one yr.
The Future Is Interdisciplinary
Although expertise adoption is likely to be considered one of his specialties, Randall is pushing the college to look past tech traits in relation to making ready college students for a future within the authorized business.
From his perspective, a necessary a part of making ready the attorneys of the long run lies in responding to a shift in the kind of work present legislation college students will doubtless be anticipated to do down the road. Randall has taken discover of the rising demand for attorneys who can apply their information of the legislation and authorized processes in collaboration with non-lawyers, and he’s pushing Scalia Legislation to comply with the change.
“One of many issues {that a} lawyer has to do is perceive what their shoppers do,” Randall says. “Possibly it’s not sufficient simply with the ability to say, ‘the legislation is X’ or ‘capital beneficial properties tax is X’ or ‘the statute of limitations is 5 years.’ You actually have to know how these guidelines apply to a sector and tips on how to assume creatively about making use of the legislation.”
“The ability units, the issues that we’re asking attorneys to do, are much less linear and fewer rule-specific than they was once, and extra problem-solving-oriented. Legal professionals actually must see themselves as problem-solvers.”
The legislation college is making ready for brand spanking new alternatives offered by George Mason’s Institute for Digital InnovAtion (IDIA), the place college and college students specializing in science and engineering are having fun with the fruits of a five-year plan for increasing IDIA amenities on the college’s Arlington campus — proper subsequent door to the legislation college.
“Legal professionals don’t work in a vacuum,” Randall says. “They work with bankers, they usually work with technologists, they usually work with engineers. That’s the sort of publicity that we would like our college students to have and to work with.”
