Online LLM and MLS Programs

Welcome today to Navigating Grad Law at WashU, your guide to admissions, academics, and more. Today, sit down with our Director and Assistant Director of Distance Education, Tim Beck and Allie Roberts, while they chat about the online programs. 

Alison Roberts: Thank you for joining us today. My name is Alison Roberts, and I’m the Assistant Director of Distance Education here at WashU Law.

I’ve been working with the online programs for around five and a half years as an admissions counselor, but at the beginning of the year, I made the switch to my current role, where I will now be advising students in both financial aid as well as academics. Today for our show, I’ll be chatting with Tim Beck, who is the Director of Distance Education. Hi, Tim.

Tim Beck: Hey, Allie.

Alison Roberts: How’s it going?

Tim Beck: Good. How are you today?

Alison Roberts: Doing well. Thanks for taking the time. Let’s start at the beginning. Tim, do you mind telling us a little bit about yourself and how you ended up here at WashU?

Tim Beck: Sure. So my name is Tim Beck and I’ve been working with WashU for almost nine years now. I began as an admissions counselor and worked my way up to manager of the online programs. I’ve been working as a manager on these programs in some capacity for about seven years now. Because of the nature of the online programs, I’ve been working remote from Maryland for the past four years. So I’m excited to be here today and to chat about the online programs.

Alison Roberts: Great. Well, we do have four online programs within the School of Law. Each of these programs caters to a different student population. In 60 seconds or less, can you tell us about each of the individual programs?

Tim Beck: Yeah, absolutely. So, our biggest program is our Master of Legal Studies program, which is intended to be a general overview of United States law. It’s pretty similar to the first year of a JD program, and it’s for non-attorneys, so for those seeking legal education but not looking to become a lawyer.

The MLS in tax is the MLS program with a specialization in tax law. So, for example, students that work as an accountant or CPA. The LLM program is a program for foreign attorneys, so for anyone that has earned a bachelor’s in law overseas and wants to learn more about United States law and potentially sit for the bar exam in the United States.

The LLM tax is for students that have completed a Juris Doctor and are seeking additional specialized education within the taxation field.

Alison Roberts: Thanks. I think that helps us set the stage a little bit. So, the online programs have been around since 2013, and you mentioned earlier you began your journey in the education technology industry almost nine years ago. Can you describe for us what the programs looked like back then in 2013 and how the technology has evolved?

Tim Beck: Yeah, good question. So, when I began about eight and a half years ago, things looked very different. We were using Adobe Connect instead of Zoom, which you may know is a stripped-down, bare-bones version of Zoom, which was not very user-friendly. Nowadays, we’re in Zoom, and unlike Adobe Connect, everybody knows Zoom, which makes it a little bit easier for us.

We were also in a totally separate learning management system called Atrio, and we’ve now transitioned to Canvas, which many of you may have heard of, but it’s a fairly commonly used learning management system, which is incredibly feature-rich. Instructors have the ability to make everything their own and use a variety of features to individualize and distinguish their courses from others. So they will have the ability to highly customize all of their courses going forward.

Alison Roberts: And you say everybody knows Zoom, I’m assuming in the context of the pandemic in 2020. I think everyone is pretty aware that we have seen a surge in online education and it’s become increasingly widespread. So in your opinion, how does WashU distinguish itself from all the other online programs that have cropped up over the years?

Tim Beck: Good question. I’d say that would be our professors. Almost all of our professors are highly qualified and experienced in the industry and are always available to the students. Another reason I’d point to is the flexibility of the course curriculum, which is a big differentiator for us among other programs.

There are really only a few required courses, for example, Intro to U.S. Law and Legal Writing, and then students can choose the remaining courses to fulfill the credit requirement. And this process allows the student to tailor the program to how they see fit based on their career goals and desired skill sets. So, for example, if a student wants to go into business law, they can choose the courses that are most relevant to business law.

Alison Roberts:  And we do have concentrations within the MLS and LLM programs that allow students to focus on one particular area of the law. Do you mind just going into each of those?

Tim Beck: Yeah, so we do have a few concentrations, five to be exact, business law, litigation, conflict resolution, regulatory compliance, and employment law. And for each of these concentrations, there’s a set of classes that each student would take. So, for example, employment law, you do have to take introduction to U.S. law, legal writing, negotiations, employment law, and then one of the three between contracts, business associations, and corporate compliance. So the concentrations are a great way for students to gear the program towards what they’re interested in after graduation.

Alison Roberts: Right, the other important thing to note is if none of those are of interest, students can also just pick and choose from the electives and tailor the program to take the classes that they want to take after the required courses. So, there’s a lot of flexibility, a lot of room to kind of make it your own.

Tim Beck: Correct.

Alison Roberts: Well, have you participated in online education before?

Tim Beck: I have, actually. I don’t have extensive experience with online education, but I did take undergraduate courses with American Military University. And when I did that, it was basically as simple as just readings, and then you took what you learned from that reading and then posted on discussion boards. Quite unsimilarly to that, our courses here are highly interactive and discussion-based.

So, really, that’s either a selling point or something that students are hesitant about from the beginning. But what I’ll say about the students that were hesitant about it at first and then ended up enrolling in the program is they end up being the same students that are incredibly thankful because they’ve said it allows them to break out of their shell and it’s, you know, generally, I’d say more conducive to learning.

In the same vein, it’s really a mindset shift. Since online programs used to be viewed as easier than residential programs, I would say that’s not the case here as our programs are pretty rigorous, if not more rigorous than residential programs.

Alison Roberts: Great. So, we’ve established that you have extensive experience within the world of online education, both on a personal and professional level. Keeping that experience in mind, what have you learned is the most advantageous benefit of completing your education online at the graduate level?

Tim Beck: Great question. I would say for this one, the people that you meet, especially with Wash U, given that our online students are from all around the world and have a variety of backgrounds, each and every class that you’ll be taking here at Wash U Law will be a diverse classroom experience. I speak to graduates often who speak about the friends and professional connections they made during the program. And I know a number of students who still interact professionally with their classmates or have become friends with them, the same people that they met while they were in the program.

Alison Roberts: And there is the opportunity for interaction outside of the online program as well, right? In person, we have an on-campus immersion.

Tim Beck: Correct. So we do have now, it’s once a year, in March, we do have an immersion. And that’s Thursday through Sunday where students have the option to come to campus and participate in classes and go to the courtroom and get sort of an inside view of a court case with all the other students. And there, like I mentioned, will be classes offered on this weekend for credit. So you’re able to, you know, network with your fellow classmates, speak to your professors, all while taking classes on campus. So we’ve gotten some very positive feedback on the immersion and always encourage our students to attend the immersion if possible.

Alison Roberts: Great. Sounds like fun. Well, from frequently speaking with graduates, what would you say are some of the key habits of our most successful students?

Tim Beck: I’d say the biggest piece of advice that I would give is consistent communication with professors. I know I touched on this before, but our professors are always open to communication and there to help. They offer office hours frequently and are very communicative. On top of that, proactively read the material as it’s usually a lot more than students think at first. There is a pretty, pretty good amount of reading in between each class.

We do see that our most successful students will not hesitate to ask for input or reach out with any questions they have either to their professors or their classmates. Lastly, I’d encourage everyone to actively participate in class discussions. There’s so much to learn from your classmates thanks to the diverse background of our student population.

Alison Roberts: I know that you said proactively reading the material was one of your biggest pieces of advice. I think that we should explain a little bit about how the classroom looks like outside of the live class sessions. Students are required to watch videos, do readings. It’s sort of a flipped classroom model where students are learning outside of the classroom and then bringing that content to the live class sessions so that they can fully participate in those conversations with things that they have already learned. So I do want to make note of that as well.

What is the most crucial piece of advice you can give to someone who is considering pursuing a degree online?

Tim Beck: I touched on this a little bit before also, but break out of your shell and put yourself out there. Finding the right program fit is also crucial. Live class sessions and frequent discussions might not be for everyone, and again, be prepared for the time commitment and do not expect it to be easier because it’s online. It is a rigorous program with a good deal of work in between each class session.

Alison Roberts: Great. Well, I know that we talked a little bit about the programs already, but do you mind explaining what the typical applicants are for each of the programs? What are we generally looking for for each of the online programs?

Tim Beck: Sure. So for the Master of Legal Studies program, almost all of our students are working professionals. As far as professional history, it’s extremely diverse, but we have students applying for the program that are interested in or come from human resources, law enforcement, compliance. Nonprofit is another one, finance, health law, paralegal services, but even outside of these, there is almost no profession that law and this program is not relevant to.

So how I talk to students about it frequently is that it’s not a program that’s going to pigeonhole you into one area or another. You’ll have plenty of options after completing the Master of Legal Studies.

And then secondly, our LLM program. So this program is for our foreign attorneys, those that have completed their bachelor’s in law from overseas. Some examples of students that have entered and graduated from our program, what countries they’re from. So we have students from China, Indonesia, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela. And I’m sure there are more than that. I just don’t have them off the top of my head, but the LLM students that enter into our program are either looking to sit for the bar exam, since there are some states that will allow this. And that’s always, we recommend our students to check with the state’s bar exam that you’re interested in and make sure that our program would meet the requirements.

Or if they’re not looking to sit for the bar exam, they’re looking to enter into the field of law in some capacity in the United States.

So the LLM tax program would be next. This program is for our domestic law students who have completed a JD program. This program is geared towards students who are just graduating from law school or for those who are well-established in the legal field looking to transition specialties.

Lastly, we have the MLS tax program. So the typical profile for our MLS tax students are generally students that already work with taxation in some capacity, usually accounting or finance backgrounds, and are looking for additional legal knowledge.

Alison Roberts: Great. Well, now that we are underway with our fall 2024 term, what is something that you have learned so far within your new position?

Tim Beck: That’s a great question. I would say I’ve learned a lot about the courses students are interested in. So as we’re going into scheduling out the next year and scheduling the courses for each term, I feel like I’ve gotten to speak to a number of students, so I have a better understanding of what the desired courses are, which will just make for a more productive course schedule each and every term.

So that’s something that I’m excited about is just creating the schedules out ahead of time and allowing the students to plan their full degrees as soon as they enter into the program.

Alison Roberts: Perfect. Well, lastly, what is one thing you are excited for as we head into the second half of 2024?

Tim Beck: I’m excited to continue changing, continue implementing changes that we’ve made since we’ve brought the programs back in-house. We’re able to make it ours, in a sense, and change some things here and there. And scheduling is one of those that I mentioned before, so I’m excited to continue building on the changes that we’ve made so far. What about you, Allie?

Alison Roberts: Yeah, same here. I think that we are learning a lot on a day-to-day basis, and it’s a challenge that we’re not used to, but I’m hopeful that we’ll continue to learn along with the students and really continue to provide the high-quality education that all of our students deserve. So that’s what I’m excited for.

Tim Beck: Awesome. 

Alison Roberts: Well thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. 

Tim Beck: Yeah, thank you, and it was great speaking with you.

Alison Roberts: Great speaking with you. 

Tim Beck: Thanks.

Alison Roberts: All right, take care.