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By this time next year, the Maurer School of Law intends to have a cohort of students that it’s never had before—the school’s first enrolled class of master of legal studies students.
While we’ve offered the traditional juris doctorate (which began as the LLB degree) program for more than 180 years, and graduate legal studies programs—designed mostly for international attorneys—for more than a century, the master of legal studies will meet an emerging need for non-lawyers with legal skills and add a new degree program to our academic offerings for the first time in years. And it couldn’t come at a better time.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is projecting up to a 15 percent increase in demand for workers with advanced legal skills in the coming years. But there’s a growing recognition that, while businesses and other workplaces increasingly require team members with specialized legal knowledge to solve—or avoid—real-world problems, that doesn’t always mean they need more lawyers.
“Businesspeople don’t need to be lawyers, but they must know the legal effects of conduct, how to minimize risks, and how the law can create value in business,” said Cornell Law School Dean Eduardo M. Peñalver.
But it’s not just businesspeople who can and will benefit from this new program. The MLS degree responds to needs — both existing and anticipated — across many sectors.
Entrepreneurs and small business owners can understand the legal aspects of business formation, contracts, intellectual property, regulatory compliance and more. Legal compliance and risk management professionals have to navigate complex regulations and ensure their organizations are operating within legal boundaries.
The human resource and employment relations officers handle issues related to employment law, discrimination and contracts. A deeper understanding of legal processes and principles would be of use to individuals working in law enforcement or other areas of the criminal justice system. School administrators routinely engage in issues related to education law, freedom of speech, contracts, and employment law.
The policy analyst and individuals working in nonprofit or advocacy groups could utilize legal knowledge to analyze statutory and case law to help advocate for legal reforms and better understand contracts, employment, and compliance issues.
We are not the first law school to expand our graduate offerings. Our friends at the McKinney School of Law have offered a similar degree—the master of jurisprudence—for more than a decade, and other law schools around the country are adding similar programs to their academic options. The Maurer master of legal studies program will be primarily designed to serve the IU Bloomington student population.
With its forthcoming launch, Indiana University Bloomington undergraduates interested in adding a graduate degree to their resume will have the opportunity to do so, in most cases within a single year.
We are working diligently to create Accelerated Master’s Program agreements with other IU Bloomington schools, giving motivated, ambitious students a competitive advantage in the global marketplace, and the opportunity to save time and money in the process. Under an AMP, an IU undergraduate could take certain graduate-level courses that count toward both their undergraduate and master of legal studies degrees. The aim is to make it possible for a student to leave Bloomington with degrees from two renowned schools in just five years.
The master of legal studies program also helps advance several objectives of IU Bloomington’s Strategic Plan. The addition of a new master’s program will improve graduate and professional success outcomes, displays the law school’s capacity to rapidly develop new programs in response to current and emerging workforce opportunities and offers a way for students to creatively combine an undergraduate degree with a graduate credential to distinguish themselves on the job market.
As our Provost Rahul Shrivastav said, “In preparation for joining an ever-evolving Indiana and global workforce, many students can benefit from additional competencies and mindsets, particularly those that cross and combine traditional disciplines. In many cases, advanced study beyond the undergraduate degree can not only increase the learner’s knowledge base, but can open new areas of potential employment and ultimately, make a positive impact in our world.”
Finally, the master of legal studies is poised to help address Indiana’s crucial shortage of lawyers, particularly in rural communities. The Maurer and McKinney law schools are, through the Rural Justice Initiative, addressing the need for more JD-credentialed attorneys already. But the master of legal studies degree will also help respond to the needs of such communities.
The program will broaden the scope of who can access legal knowledge and how, by creating a greater understanding of the law among its graduates, they can apply it in their respective careers and communities.
While the master of legal studies will not allow a degree holder to practice law, it will empower individuals and professionals to better navigate legal systems, contracts, regulations, and policies. This knowledge is particularly important for marginalized and underserved communities whose members may face legal challenges but have limited resources for legal representation.
We are excited about this new program and the opportunities it will provide for future students and the communities and organizations they go on to serve.•
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Christiana Ochoa is dean, professor of law and Class of 1950 Herman B Wells endowed professor at Indiana University Maurer School of Law. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
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