Law schools enroll technology to teach 21st-century lawyers.

Technology is transforming the way law is taught and learned. Law schools are integrating computers and other electronic technology into classrooms and offering instruction and feedback online. There is even a law school for students who want to earn a J.D. by taking all their classes via the Internet.

The University of Southern California Law School has outfitted several classrooms with high-tech equipment, including VCRs, audiotape players, and data video projectors. "Instructors' stations" include Pentium PCs with CD-ROM drives attached to audiovisual equipment for Powerpoint lectures. Professors can project an Internet site to the class on a large screen or show a videotape on trial techniques.

At Nova Southeastern University Law Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, incoming students are required to own a laptop computer and attend a 10-hour computer training session.

Students can review syllabuses, take exams, and check their grades online. They hold discussions with classmates and professors in chat rooms and can ask questions of instructors by e-mail anytime (faculty members respond within 24 hours). Classes are taped and digitized for the Internet so students can watch a class again after attending it. They must get permission from the professor to view the tapes.

"We see legal practice transitioning to a more efficient technology-driven system. Those who are able to participate in that won't be disadvantaged by these changes," said Tom Rogers, the school's legal technology manager. "For example, when our law students go to work, they are not going to be daunted by the need to file electronically. They will have the skills and the vocabulary and know how to use them."

The Concord University School of Law has no campus. Over the Internet (at http://www.concord.kaplan.edu), it offers a four-year part-time program using, it says, the same curriculum and casebooks as a traditional law school does. The school is a division of Kaplan Educational Centers, the standardized test coaching company, a subsidiary of The Washington Post Co.

"Our state-of-the-art technology provides greater access to professors and fellow students via instructor-led chat rooms, extensive working knowledge of online electronic research engines, and an invaluable preparation for the practice of law," Jack Goetz, an attorney and dean of the school, said in a statement.

Concord students maintain contact with other students and professors in chat rooms and by e-mail or phone, and they have Internet access to an online law library. Classes are guided by a board of professors from ABA-approved law schools. Online lectures are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There are regular interactive exams, and feedback on written work is sent by e-mail. Office hours are held in chat rooms, and advisers (and members of the faculty and administration) are available by phone, fax, and e-mail.

Concord is approved by the Bureau of Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education to grant law degrees, and the California Committee of Bar Examiners has registered the school so that its graduates may sit for the California bar. However, Concord is categorized by state law as a "correspondence" school, and the ABA and the Committee of Bar Examiners don't accredit correspondence schools.

Accreditation from a state or national bar association would allow Concord students to take bar exams outside California. Graduating from an ABA-accredited law school is a requirement for taking the bar in many states. Kaplan says this is a long-term goal.

At its midyear meeting in February, the ABA revised its law school accreditation standards. Nonaccredited law schools that the ABA knows about will now be included in its annual directory. To maintain its status as the national law school accrediting agency recognized by the federal government under the Higher Education Act, the ABA has also revamped its accreditation decision-making procedures.

Determining what standards must be met to sit for the bar exam rests with individual state supreme courts, not the federal government.