Working professionals gain legal knowledge

BALANCING ACT: Derek Tevyaw, who works at HealthSource RI, is a part-time student at Roger Williams University College of Law in Providence. Tevyaw is enrolled in the Master of Studies in Law program to gain general law knowledge he can apply at work. Third-year law student Maria Viveiros of North Providence looks on. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
BALANCING ACT: Derek Tevyaw, who works at HealthSource RI, is a part-time student at Roger Williams University College of Law in Providence. Tevyaw is enrolled in the Master of Studies in Law program to gain general law knowledge he can apply at work. Third-year law student Maria Viveiros of North Providence looks on. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Many working professionals are expected to understand legal standards and concepts, but lack a formal legal education.

After identifying this as a need, Roger Williams University School of Law created a master’s degree program that allows students to study general law and specialty subjects without a three-year or full-time commitment.

The 30-credit Master of Studies in Law program started this year, with an inaugural class of seven students. Two are enrolled full time, and are expected to finish their degrees in spring 2017. Five part-time students will progress at their own pace.

The program is designed to include a mix of standard law classes, the same taken by first-year law students, and electives chosen by the master’s degree students. The students, on graduation, will not be qualified to work as attorneys and can’t sit for the bar exam. But they will have gained deeper knowledge of legal concepts and areas of law, said Thomas Shaffer, director of admissions for the law school and program director for the master of studies in law.

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“This is for working professionals, who would like to gain knowledge in a particular area of the law that will help them with their careers, short of becoming an attorney,” Shaffer said.

Some of the students enrolled in the inaugural year include a journalist who is studying criminal law and constitutional law, a student focused on immigration law and another following a cybersecurity track.

Roger Williams University has Rhode Island’s only law school. The tuition for the master’s degree is slightly less than the three-year juris doctorate. The cost is $977 a credit hour, or $29,310 for the complete, 30-credit program.

In creating the degree, Roger Williams researched competing programs. In New England, little is directly comparable.

Northeastern University School of Law in Boston has a similar Master of Legal Studies degree, but it is conducted completely online, according to the program website. Its annual cost is $28,350 for the 2016-17 academic year.

Yale University Law School in New Haven, Conn., also has a long-running Master of Studies in Law program, designed to provide nonlawyers with a basic familiarity in law, according to its website. The one-year program is open to applicants who have a doctorate or are doctoral candidates in fields outside law, as well as midcareer journalists. Tuition for one year costs $57,600.

Derek Tevyaw, a part-time student in the Roger Williams University program, works at HealthSource RI as an account analyst. Tevyaw studied criminal justice as an undergraduate, and said he enrolled in the master’s degree program because a formal education in law would help him to evaluate appeals of eligibility, tax credits and other coverage issues.

He is paying for the education himself, with the help of a part-time job on weekends.

Another student, Austin Smith, moved to Rhode Island for the program.

A native of Albany, N.Y., Smith has an undergraduate degree in accounting and plans to work for his family’s small accounting business when he graduates. But to take the CPA exam in New York, he needs the additional credits the master’s degree affords.

He thought the legal program would be more beneficial than pursuing an MBA. Much of the work of accountants involves consulting with business owners. “Having a law background helps,” he said.

Enrolled in the Roger Williams program full time, Smith said this semester he is taking a general introduction class, a contracts class, as well as business organization, which explains how and why to establish companies as LLCs, nonprofits, etc.

The master’s degree, for him, was what he needed. He doesn’t want to practice law, and is happy he won’t be immersed in studies for three years.

“Law school is not as glamourous as the movies make it seem,” he said. •

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