Welcome back to Ahead of the Curve. I'm Karen Sloan, legal education editor at Law.com, and I'll be your host for this weekly look at innovation and notable developments in legal education.

This week, I'm tracking the trend of law schools launching summer and fall classes centered on the law and the COVID-19 pandemic. Northwestern law professor Dan Rodriguez offers some lessons learned from his early efforts on that front. Plus, I'm checking in on some of the ways legal educators are finding levity in a troubling and uncertain time—from a free summer class on the law and Seinfeld to funny videos produced by law faculty in tribute of their students. Read on and stay safe!

Please share your thoughts and feedback with me at [email protected] or on Twitter: @KarenSloanNLJ

COVID-19 Classes Everywhere

With the spring semester wrapping up (or already over) legal academics are turning their attention to summer and fall courses. What will these look like? We don't know. Well, we know that summer classes are going to continue in their virtual vein, and university administrators are grappling with format changes for the fall.

One thing we do know, however, is that a number of law schools are planning new courses centered on the law and the pandemic. I'm sure there are more than these examples, but here is a quick rundown of the courses that came across my radar in the past week or two:

➤➤Seton Hall professor Jennifer Oliva is teaching a class called COVID-19: Current Topics in Pandemic Law and Policy this summer. The seven-week seminar will "examine the legal and ethical foundations of pandemic and emergency preparedness, intervention, and evaluation in the context of the novel coronavirus."

➤➤Albany Law School dean Alicia Ouellette is also teaching a seven-week summer class for 2Ls, 3Ls and 4Ls dubbed COVID-19: Law in a Time of Pandemic. The class will feature a number of guest speakers.

➤➤This fall, Willamette law professor Paul Diller will teach Legal Implications of COVID-19 Pandemic, which will primarily focus on public health but will also explore other legal areas impacted by the coronavirus.

The lineup gives you a sense that schools and professors are pulling together these classes, and I suspect the demand is high from students for a class that explores the legal aspects of a pandemic that has upended their lives. It's the epitome of "ripped from the headlines."

But here's where it gets tricky. COVID-19 has so many legal facets: it's impact on the justice system; prisoner and human rights; presidential powers; and drug oversight, just to name a few. How do you hit all the key areas without being too superficial? For some insights, I rang up Northwestern law professor Dan Rodriguez, who as far as I can tell was the first to offer a law course on the coronavirus. He began and five-week online pop-up course for Northwestern students on COVID-19 in March, just as the virus was beginning its massive disruption of life in the United States. He followed that up with a free, open course on Coursera that is about to wrap up the last of four sessions. I wanted to know what worked and what didn't in those classes, and I'm apparently not the only one. Rodriguez told me that he has fielded similar questions from other legal academics who want to put together their own COVID-19 classes. As I suspected, scope is one of the most important things to consider when designing these courses.

"The challenge is how to yoke together materials and coverage of an almost limitless amount of topics that deal with coronavirus," Rodriguez told me. "There are some difficult choices about what to cover and what not to cover, and how to teach something that it wide-ranging without making it so shallow."

Rodriguez taught 10 different subjects in his pop-up course, and said he would pare that down to enable him to go more in-depth on a smaller number of subjects. (He will get a third crack at it: Rodriguez is teaching a three-credit summer coronavirus class.) Yet another approach with COVID-19 courses is to drill down on a particular topic and go in-depth on how the coronavirus is impacting that area. There could be an entire course on COVID-19 and employment law, Rodriguez said.

One clear winner to emerge from Rodriguez' early COVID-19 teaching experiments was the use of guest speakers. Rodriguez recorded a series on interviews with experts on the legal topics the classes covered but are not in his personal wheelhouse. The interviews, which were anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes, turned out to be more engaging than simply assigning readings, he said. For example, Rodriguez recorded an interview with a contracts expert to explore force majeure clauses—something he personally knows little about. The fact that pretty much everyone is stuck at home makes it an easier sell to get others to participate, he added.

"Anybody teaching in this area knows just a sliver of these disparate issues," Rodriguez said. "So my advice is: Reach out to folks and do an interview with them."

My take: I would expect quite a lot of student interest in these early pandemic law classes. Rodriguez told me that more than 200 Northwestern students signed up for his pop-up class, and more than 500 for the Coursera offering. It's not just that law students tend to gravitate toward current event topics; it's that this is a topic that is directly impacting them in a way that most don't. COVID-19 has forced them out of the classroom, possibly disrupted their summer work plans, and may be threatening their own health and that of loved ones. Among other things. Taking a class centered on the law and the pandemic could be one small way for them to make sense of a complex and rapidly changing situation over which they have very little control. I anticipate many more of these courses come fall.

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Legal Education Has a Little Fun

Look, there's no getting around the fact that the past few months have been pretty heavy. It has basically felt like a barrage of bad news and uncertainty, which is why I'm happy to see some law schools and legal educators lightening things up a bit recently.

I had a blast talking to University of Iowa law professor Greg Shill last week about the Yada Yada Law School—the 10-week free online course he pulled together that explores the law through the lens of the '90s sitcom 'Seinfeld.' I especially enjoyed all the insidery endowned chair names he and his nine fellow Yada Yada faculty members chose for the class, which is part entertainment and part education. (For the record, Yada Yada couldn't even secure accreditation from the Kramerican Bar Association—you've been warned.)

But Shill isn't the only one having a little fun these days. I've seen playful videos from a number of law faculties dealing with the move to online classes and virtual graduations. Professors at Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark had a clever take on commencement in their video "Graduation Streaming" which reworks the lyrics to "California Dreaming" to lament the fact that they won't be walking across a stage this year to collect their diplomas. (I must say, BYU has some nice singers and musicians on the faculty.)

Professors at Texas A&M University School of Law put together "We Will Zoom You," which, you guessed it, riffs on online classes to the tune of "We Will Rock You." They may not have the musical chops of BYU's faculty, but their video gets extra points for the appearance of cute children and a Ruth Bader Ginsburg bobblehead. I'm sure there have been many other fun videos pulled together for virtual graduations and the like. Send them my way! I could use a laugh, too.

Extra Credit Reading

Louisiana and Nevada are joining Utah and Indiana in taking their own approach to the July bar exam.

The American Bar Association looks to shake things up a bit in how it approves distance education programs.

Legal tech firms won't be able to take on new law grads shut out of the traditional entry-level legal job market.

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I'll be back next week with more news and updates on the future of legal education. Until then, keep in touch at [email protected]