Your Trusted Legal Education Online Partner
Collaborations to produce and promote high-quality online programs
The emDigital Difference
Why should you consider emDigital for your online program needs?
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emDigital focuses on law schools because, like you, law school is the world we know best. Our mission is to help law schools present online courses and programs that embody the high quality and rigor of residential programs, while putting forward a path that allows expanded access to those who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend law school. This commitment is the same whether your online planning is focused on a Certificate, LL.M., Master’s program, or the J.D. degree.
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All of this means little without the skills needed to get a project from concept to execution as seamlessly as possible. emDigital’s team has worked with over 20 law school programs, with the results being a valuable testament to what will be accomplished with your school's program.
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emDigital builds through the lens of law school, and especially law student success. There is no cookie-cutter approach with emDigital – our work is customized around your professors’ courses and is designed to have an impact. With emDigital, law school pedagogy is central to course build, not an afterthought.
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Our intimate knowledge of law schools extends to law school finances, with emDigital pricing based on a realistic view of your budget. emDigital’s careful up-front planning focuses on building the best path for law school revenue generation over multiple years.
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emDigital also provides expertise in navigating multiple regulatory environments. With experience in helping schools with ABA acquiescence and, if needed, regional and state regulators, we’re well positioned to assist with your applications, site visits, and appearances before regulatory bodies.
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emDigital understands that law schools’ abilities have evolved, especially post-pandemic. Synchronous and asynchronous are no longer foreign terms to your faculty. Because of this evolution, and the investment you and your university may have spent to build up your distance education knowledge and resources, we will tailor our collaboration to focus just on the services you need.
Services
emDigital understands that a successful law school online program requires multiple areas to operate like clockwork. We’ll engage with you early on to map out needs and timelines, and to set a strategic vision for your program, staying true to your law school’s mission and goals. Our work is built around law school needs in the following areas.
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Early-stage assessments of potential new degree programs, including reviews of market size, competition, and growth potential. Key part of most of emDigital’s market research projects are prospective student surveys, school readiness reviews, and financial projections.
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Experienced guidance mapping out program deliverables and timelines, ensuring progress is made and goals are met.
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Mapping a curriculum that takes advantage of online teaching modalities, while maintaining fidelity to the law school’s current curriculum and pedagogical needs. emDigital’s curriculum mapping also looks to maximize the impact of residential periods for hybrid (online + residential) structures.
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Designing and building online courses with experienced emDigital instructional designers assigned to work with law school faculty, setting clear learning outcomes and using online education best practices. While emDigital’s focus is on asynchronous course builds, our design group will also assist with synchronous and residential courses as needed.
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Introducing faculty to the different paths for preparing online courses, especially asynchronous courses, while maintaining ultimate instructor control over content. emDigital’s focus in this area also looks to prepare faculty for their collaboration with an instructional designer.
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Targeted promotion for law school’s degree program, including drafting promotional campaigns, selecting optimal marketing channels, implementing SEO and SEM best practices, and effectively using social media for promotion and messaging. Central to emDigital’s marketing work is a focus on expanding access to underserved audiences.
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Securing qualified leads from prospective students, allowing for a funnel of students both interested in the law school and likely to be admitted.
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Working with prospective students from lead generation to application, starting at pre-LSAT/GRE stage. emDigital’s recruitment work includes personalized attention to each applicant’s needs in order to better understand their fit for the program, while maintaining a steady increase in student affinity for the school and ensuring an overall diverse applicant pool.
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Working to ensure minimal attrition, guiding students from acceptance to matriculation and from matriculation to graduation, including focusing on non-academic needs during students’ law school studies.
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Guidance on the process for approvals of new programs from regulatory bodies and the law school’s university/board, including drafting applications and preparation for approval meetings. This work builds on emDigital’s experience with successful law school new program approvals, including ABA acquiescence applications.
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Drafting multi-year revenue and expense budgets for online programs, working closely with law school and university CFOs. emDigital’s finance work includes enrollment projections, discount needs, attrition estimates, and recommendations on school spending, including faculty compensation for developing online courses.
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Managing the technical aspects of the law school’s learning management system and online courses, including providing 24/7 student technical support, data and systems reporting to the law school, and exam administration.
Collaboration Models
emDigital recognizes that one size doesn’t fit all, especially as law schools and their universities have added online program resources and support. We can provide end-to-end services or work with schools on narrowly focused projects. Our fees are customized with law school’s (often limited) budgets in mind. As example of our flexibility and ability to tailor our collaboration model can be seen in our approach to instructional design. The following models are a jumping off point for tailoring to your school needs and budgets:
Great for schools looking for light updating to existing courses, training programs, support for instructional designers, or individual guidance for faculty who will build courses themselves.
Hourly Engagement Model
Per-Credit Hour Model (Shared Build)
Lower per-credit hour rate. Instructional design services provided with a generous amount of designer time, great for schools where faculty take on some design tasks.
Per-Credit Hour Model (Full-Service Build)
Higher per-credit hour rate. Design services provided with no cap on emDigital’s instructional designer time, allowing for increased guidance and design innovation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Isn’t designing law courses just like designing courses in other disciplines?
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No. Effective law course design requires an understanding of the unique goals and teaching methods of legal education. From the Socratic method and case analysis to legal reasoning and professional skills, law courses require specialized instructional strategies that differ significantly from other academic disciplines. A designer who understands legal education can better support both faculty and student success.
Why not use my university’s instructional design team?
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You certainly can. However, most university instructional design teams support many disciplines and may have limited experience with law school pedagogy. A specialized law course designer understands the structure, expectations, and teaching methods unique to legal education, allowing faculty to spend less time explaining context and more time focusing on teaching.
Can’t our professors design their own courses?
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Faculty are the experts in their subject matters, but instructional design is its own discipline. A specialized instructional designer partners with faculty to translate their expertise into engaging, well-organized, high-quality online courses while preserving academic rigor and reducing the time faculty spend on course development.
Can’t we simply record residential classes?
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For a high-quality asynchronous course, recording classroom sessions is rarely enough. Asynchronous learning requires intentional design for students who are learning independently. That means creating content, activities, assessments, and media specifically for the online environment rather than adapting a live classroom experience after the fact.
Partners
About Us
emDigital was founded by legal education veterans Michael Gregory and Steven Emanuel.
Steve Emanuel
Steve is recognized as the pre-eminent authority in helping generations of students succeed in their law school classes. Steve began his work during his 1L year, when he could not understand Civil Procedure and decided to write up his own outline. He gained a solid grasp of the subject by composing the outline, emboldening him to then sell it to his fellow students. Others were drawn by the concise style and straightforward format of what would become the Emanuel Law Outline series. Working with his father Lazar, Steve founded Emanuel Publishing Corp, developing outlines for over a dozen subjects, and expanding his business to publish the highly regarded CrunchTimes, Law in a Flash, and Strategies & Tactics series. Steve sold his business to Aspen in 2001 but remains the main author for many series titles. Steve is a member of the New York, Connecticut, Maryland, and Virginia bars. He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School and his BA from Amherst College.
Michael Gregory, President
Mike is a long-time veteran of law school publishing. After a short time in practice, Mike realized that his love of law school was not replicated by a love of practicing law. He joined Little, Brown and Company’s law school division, focusing on casebook adoptions. For almost 20 years at Little, Brown and its successor company Aspen, Mike worked to understand the needs of law school faculty and students and to build and promote author-driven legal education content. He worked in a variety of senior positions, including as Director of Sales & Marketing and Director of Strategic Initiatives. In 2015 Mike joined Ken Randall (former University of Alabama law dean) at iLaw, where as Senior Vice President for Business Development he helped envision and launch over 20 law school online degree programs, including 4 online JDs. Mike is a member of the Massachusetts bar. He received his JD from Suffolk University Law School and his BA from Syracuse University.
Contact Information:
508-868-5032
Contact Us
We look forward to speaking with you regarding your law school’s online course and program needs. Please complete the fields below and we’ll be in touch shortly.