Albany Law School is planning to offer programs aimed at non-lawyers, bracing up for likely sagging enrollment and potential deregulation of the legal profession

In the past 10 years, Albany Law School has changed its presidents about 4 times.  Apparently, presidents do not live up to the enrollment goals.

Albany Law School is a private law school with a per-year estimated costs each student would invest into his or her education, close to $60,000 PER YEAR:

Under the guidance of its newest president, Professor Ouelette, the school is about to start offering education to "non-JD students" (as in "JD = Juris Doctor", a degree qualifying graduates to sit for the bar examination and obtain a license to practice law).

The declared intent of such "non-JD" programs is "that we would like to make available to a broader audience what we believe is a high-quality and incredibly valuable legal education," Haynes said. "We want to make it so that non-lawyers and non-JD students can get a quality legal education."


Why did it happen so that ALS was inspired to bring legal education into broader masses just when the legal profession is suffering a push for deregulation, losing paying clients not only to bad economy, but also to legal information portals such as Nolo and LegalZoom, and when law school enrollments are ever dwindling?

It was a marketing move to survive, not a move to educate masses out of generosity of ALS faculty's kind hearts.

I would love to be able to fast-forward time about 10-15 years into the future and see how ALS and legal licensing will fare then.  It is not a betting game and I do not want to make predictions, but it appears that the legal profession is coming towards deregulation faster and faster.