The law profession carefully regulates which programs can gain accreditation and so far, online law degrees have made few gains, even as other professions rush to scale on their online offerings. Indeed, as stated on the American Bar Association (ABA) website, ‘Currently, no law schools that provide a J.D. degree completely via distance education are approved by the ABA.’ The ABA even warns prospective students that ‘Earning an education completely via distance education may drastically limit your ability to sit for the bar in many states.’ The reasons why the law profession appears to be emerging as an outlier in online education are diverse, but at least some insiders suggest that the profession’s resistance to change may be largely to blame." …
I don’t think it’s (only) anti-competitive behavior. I’m not a lawyer nor have I been to law school, but it does seem that law classes rely a lot on discussion and answering questions in class - or at least on the Socratic method. That’s difficult to do in online education. There are also the extracurricular things - like moot court, law review, etc. - that are also hard to do in a completely online format that will leave online law school grads at a disadvantaged compared to in-person grads, no matter how eventually legitimized the degree becomes.
And yes, the glut of law students and lack of positions that allow law graduates to repay their loans need to be addressed…there’s no reason to make it easy for more people to get law degrees when law schools can’t even place the alumni they already have.