Sometimes Less is Less
The potential danger of short-term,
entry-level programs.
By Susan Howery
November/December 1999 IssueLast year, some of you may have caught the movie, “One True
Thing,” a moving story about a daughter who returns home to care for her dying
mother. The film’s subplot involves the father who is completely detached from his
family and espouses statements such as, “Less is more.” Later in the movie, the
mother tells her daughter, “To me, more is more.” Because paralegal programs are
a significant part of my life, the movie made me think about paralegal education and its
worth. I discovered a definite parallel between the movie’s issue of “less is
more,” and short-term and distance education paralegal programs.
The Rise of Continuing Education Departments
Over the past two decades, colleges and universities have been trying to stay solvent in
tough times. As an instructor and paralegal program director in the late ’80s and
early ’90s, I observed many colleges and universities dealing with the problem of
declining enrollment numbers. We discussed the trend in many long meetings at the college
where I was employed, and it was a topic of interest at many of the national seminars I
attended. In order to increase revenues and the number of bodies necessary to satisfy
governmental agencies and bottom lines, many colleges and universities moved toward
strengthening their continuing education departments (i.e., master’s degrees and
other post-degree programs). This new agenda saw the dawn of short-term programs in
various disciplines, including the paralegal profession. The creation of distance
education programs, made possible by many technological advances, was seen as another
solution to the money problem.
Short-Term Programs
The paralegal profession has seen the rise and fall of many paralegal programs, including
everything from fly-by-night crash courses to programs with real content. I’ve always
assumed that fly-by-night programs easily fail because they’re poorly managed,
they’re poorly constructed, they’re embroiled in college politics, and student
interest in the subject isn’t sufficient. From what I’ve seen over the years,
poorly constructed programs — often too short in content — also fail because
employers are dissatisfied with the graduates. Students can’t get jobs. Thus,
I’ve never worried about such programs too much — they should naturally fail,
right? But short-term programs — a breed of programs that can often be characterized
as fly-by-night — seem to be growing in popularity. Employers will sometimes pay for
them, and, if not, employed graduates can afford them. They can be completed quickly and
without much money or effort and, in turn, the student receives a certificate to hang on
his or her wall. However, many of these programs were and still are created by
entrepreneurs looking only to make a fast buck.
Distance Education
Distance education is another recent innovation in the delivery system of programs —
paralegal systems included. Distance education encompasses interactive television,
broadcast telecourses and online courses that have arisen as delivery modes for courses
and whole programs, appealing to the at-home parent, the working masses and graduate
students. To some, distance education is sexy — it’s fresh and glitzy.
Consumers, however, can easily confuse distance education with quality education. The
terms are not synonymous. Again, many entrepreneurs are capitalizing on opportunity.
The Danger
The danger isn’t just in continuing legal education programs, or in the delivery of
courses via distance education. There are a lot of good programs out there. What potential
students don’t realize, however, is that many colleges and universities instate
short-term and distance education programs that are sold by opportunists as quality
programs. Unfortunately, these don’t always provide sufficient training and content
for students. These opportunists then use the good name of the college or university to
gain respect for the program. The program may never have gone through a curriculum
process, a needs-survey or a thoughtful design process with the area’s employers in
mind. The college often isn’t even involved in outlining the program’s content.
Some of these programs are only six weeks long and still claim to produce a functional
graduate.
Robert LeClair, chairperson of the American Association
for Paralegal Education (AAfPE) Distance Education Task Force and board member, said,
“My opinion is that the short-term, entry-level training does a disservice to the
paralegal profession, to the students enrolled and to the clients served, assuming the
graduates of those programs can ever find jobs.”
Quality Mongers
AAfPE and the American Bar Association (ABA) serve as watchdogs for the quality of
paralegal programs. Programs that want to be members of AAfPE must be approved by the ABA
or be in substantial compliance with the ABA’s Guidelines for Approval of Legal
Assistant Programs. The AAfPE candidate school must also be institutionally accredited by
a nationally recognized accrediting agency. I strongly encourage you to make certain that
the program you wish to enter is backed by AAfPE or the ABA, or at least adheres to the
same guidelines.
Three Things to Look for in a Quality Paralegal
Program
1. The program must be long enough to provide adequate training. Those of
you already working in the paralegal field know that what’s required is more than any
school can provide. However, educators have a duty to provide an adequate foundation. I
don’t believe this can be accomplished in less than 18 semester units, which is the
minimum requirement for ABA approval.
2. Paralegal programs should balance the
curriculum between teaching job skills and teaching theory of law. When choosing a
program, potential students should check to be sure the curriculum at least includes:
- Legal research and writing, litigation, ethics, contracts,
business organizations and torts.
- A general education requirement in order to graduate.
- An internship or other type of experiential learning
component.
3. Potential students should also
investigate whether the school:
- Has adequate facilities, such as a law library, computer
labs and properly equipped classrooms;
- Provides opportunities to perform volunteer work in the
legal community, in a student association or in honor societies; and
- Offers academic counseling, career services, financial
aid, tutoring, orientation and placement assistance. (Taken from the “Choosing a
Paralegal Education Program” brochure produced by the Association of Legal
Administrators and the Conclave (AAfPE, ABA, Legal Assistant Management Association,
National Association of Legal Assistants and the National Federation of Paralegal
Associations).
Laying Down the Law
Nobody can deny entrepreneurs the right to make a fast buck. They’ll always be out
there looking for opportunities to do just that. We can, however, do our part to keep
untrained graduates out of the work force. The legal profession is known for its
intolerance of incompetence. If we use a measuring stick for quality when picking a
paralegal program, such as AAfPE membership, ABA approval or any of the above listed
qualities, maybe we won’t find ourselves buried in student loans and still out of a
job after we’ve already graduated. |
