Online training has become ubiquitous. This learning, entirely through the internet, has grown with the popularity of multimedia elements gamifying study through graphics, audio, quizzes, and video.
In the legal world, this includes courses on everyday technology (think Excel or Word) tailored to lawyers. It extends to the practical learning of law, such as contracts, to the law and economics of media platforms and international & EU procedural tax Law.
In the words of Mark Cohen, a prominent legal and technology expert, “Digital learning provides an excellent opportunity to narrow the experience and skill gaps for law students and practitioners.”
Here are the five top sources of online training lawyers need to know
1. Procertas
Casey Flaherty is a former outside and in-house counsel who founded Procertas, which offers The Legal Technology Assessment for lawyers. This tool assesses a legal professional’s proficiency with basic, everyday technology and provides training on tasks in which they are deficient. The cost is $200 for video training on carrying out key actions in Word and Excel and on PDFs.
2. Praktio
“Praktio is a safer place to make mistakes.” — Professor Michael L Bloom, Michigan Law Professor
Founded by Michigan Law Professor Michael L. Bloom, Praktio (from $99) provides practical online interactive contract training. It allows corporate law departments to learn to draft, analyze, and negotiate contracts through a series of “repetitions” and is a “safer place to make mistakes”, according to Professor Bloom. He says: “There are so many people who in their day-to-day lives, interact with contracts and draft contracts and they are making it up as they go along. Here is a space where you can learn what these things mean and learn the basic skills.”
3. HotShot
Hotshot covers a range of legal and business topics, providing just-in-time learning for lawyers, and helping organizations run more effective training programs. HotShot’s founders, Chris Wedgeworth and Ian Nelson, are former leaders of Practical Law Company. The pair saw the success of digital learning in people’ personal and professional lives and its need in the legal space, aiming to plug gaps in legal education. Users can select from a growing catalog of topics that cover both legal and business skills such as accounting and finance for lawyers and the basics of mergers and acquisitions.
4. edX
For those wanting to stay up-to-date on the latest legal thinking from the world’s top universities, edX delivers free online law courses covering everything from international law to contract law.
[Starts Today] Contract Law: From Trust to Promise to Contract from Harvard University on edX ★★★★☆ (8 ratings) https://t.co/D9lmQfz0gl pic.twitter.com/NNhyEFkEiD
— Class Central (@classcentral) July 10, 2018
5. Coursera
Coursera offers online courses from top universities on everything from European business law to the law and economics of media platforms. For instance, Sjoerd Douma, Professor of International & EU Procedural Tax Law at the University of Amsterdam, provides a course on Rethinking International Tax Law. This led one user to say: “International taxation principles initially seemed too complicated for me to understand. This has to a greater extent been demystified and I have the confidence that I can deliver great results…. It is for this reason that I have decided to take on international taxation as a career path.”
Many thanks to @coursera for making it possible to share our passion for International Tax Law with so many @UniLeiden @C4Innovation https://t.co/X8jY3q8cKT
— Sjoerd Douma (@SjoerdDouma) April 3, 2017
This is taken from the In-House Counsel’s LegalTech Buyer’s Guide 2018
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