Online & Hybrid Learning Conference Continues to Inspire New Approaches in Legal Education

(l-r) Conference Co-Chairs Tiffane Cochran (AccessLex), Sara Berman (USC Gould School of Law), David Thomson (Sturm College of Law), and Greg Brandes (Monterey College of Law).

For the third time since 2019, the University of Denver Sturm College of Law recently brought together legal academic scholars from across the country to share ideas on how institutions of higher education can best educate future lawyers. While many academic convenings are meant to address various topics in the field, the Online and Hybrid Learning Conference was conceived to consider the “how” rather than the “what” of legal education. This year’s focus was “Toward Defining Best Practices in Legal Education.” 

Conference attendee Steve Daniels, Research Professor Emeritus with the American Bar Foundation has joined Denver Law for all three events and recognizes the value of student input: "I’ve attended each of the Online and Hybrid Learning Conferences as an observer — someone who studies legal education. I am impressed with how the conferences have reflected the interest in and growth of online/hybrid programs. This most recent conference was especially good in allowing schools to report on and share what’s happening on the ground — making the conference not just a series of progress reports but an important learning opportunity. The conference also had presentations by and discussions with current students in online/hybrid programs. We really need the student experience — they’re the key to knowing what works and what doesn’t."

Another attendee of all three conferences Svetlana Tyulkina, associate professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, has developed a new appreciation for the reach of online learning opportunities saying "I gained a deeper understanding of the value of online and hybrid pedagogy, recognizing that while there are challenges in implementation, the benefits—especially for widening access to legal education—far outweigh them. Online and hybrid learning models can empower certain underrepresented groups by providing them with educational opportunities they might not otherwise have. The conference strongly reinforced my view that online learning is an essential component of contemporary legal education. I believe educators and institutions must invest both monetary and non-monetary resources in building high-quality online or hybrid programs to ensure robust and accessible learning experiences."

We asked David Thomson, who originally organized the conference and continues to host it at Denver Law, for his thoughts on the history and future of the event. Thomson is the Sturm College of Law’s John C. Dwan Professor for Online Learning and a professor of the practice of law, teaching Lawyering Process, Administrative Law, and Discovery Practicum courses. Thomson is also the author of The Way Forward for Legal Education (Carolina Academic Press 2023), which features many of his views on how law schools could incorporate online and hybrid learning going forward.

What inspired you to organize the first conference on hybrid and online learning?

In 2018, I had successfully finished teaching a hybrid version of Lawyering Process, at the request of our associate dean of academic affairs at that time. I also taught a fully online, one-semester Lawyering Process course in the Master of Science in Legal Administration program in 2005 and 2006, but as late as 2018, the conversation around online teaching and learning in law school was still stuck on "should we do this at all?" I found myself impatient with that view, believing that the much more interesting conversation would be about addressing such questions as "how can we do this well?" No one else was putting on that conference, so I realized I needed to.  So, I found two colleagues who also knew a lot about this — Greg Brandes and Sara Berman — and asked them to be co-chairs with me.  It took off from there. 

Did you always plan for it to be a recurring event?

The simple answer to this question is: No. But you always wonder if it is successful, maybe there would be need for another... And we had 160 attendees at the first one, and many people said extravagant things about it like "We will always remember the Denver Conference..." And then the pandemic hit, and we all learned that we could do this, and then the momentum started with the 2019 conference accelerated. 

The conference has been held three times so far, in 2019, 2022, and 2024 (with a break in 2021 due to COVID). Do you anticipate that the conference will continue in 2026 and beyond? 

Yes. It has become the national leading conference on the subject of how to teach law online well and effectively. There is much more work that remains to be done.

What do you expect to be featured in future conferences?

We hope there will be more data collection so we have an increasing amount of empirical evidence of what works well and what works not as well. That has been increasing with each conference, but there is plenty of room for more.

Can you share any notable changes or advancements in online/hybrid learning that have emerged as a result of the conference? 

There has been more data collection, and numerous online and hybrid programs have been added in the last five years to many law schools, and they have expanded. I have always been concerned about access to law school, and these programs have expanded access to a group of qualified students who — for reasons of jobs, family obligations, or both — would not be able to go to law school without these programs.

What surprising or innovative approaches to learning have resulted from or been presented at the conference?  

When we say "Hybrid" that means some sort of mix of online and in-person teaching and learning environments.  What has been somewhat surprising is how many different variations on that basic concept have already bloomed and thrived in law schools around the country, and how fast this has happened.

Based on the trends you’ve observed and your own research, what do you anticipate for the future of online and hybrid legal education?

Much wider expansion. I predict that in 10 years or so most law schools will have a part-time or hybrid format program that they offer, as we do at Denver Law with our Part-Time JD Program.

What are the most valuable lessons to be learned from participating schools’ experiences with online and hybrid learning?

Two things, primarily: 1) it works, and 2) it opens access for candidates that we did not really know about. There were, it turns out, many potential lawyers who did not apply to law school because the "brick and mortar" version of it — most of what was offered in accredited law schools five years ago — just did not work for them. There was a crowd of people looking wistfully at us from the outside, wanting to learn and participate in the legal world, and we did not even know they were there.